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Misinformation and Its Correction in an Era of Fake News Awareness

Fri, August 31, 10:00 to 11:30am, Marriott, Salon I

Abstract

During the 2016 US presidential election campaign, interest in 'fake news' surged among political elites, media, and mass publics. Bolstered by candidate and later president Trump, the term has heightened attention to the prevalence, particularly on social media platforms, of news stories that have no factual basis but are presented as news. In response to this, numerous fact-checking initiatives have been established.
 
In response to the rising attention to fake news, a body of scholarship has attempted to estimate the prevalence of exposure to fake news, as well as its effects on voter behavior. Existing research suggests that exposure to fake news is frequent, at least in absolute terms, although selective exposure by partisanship may constrain the effect of fake news exposure on vote choice. Corrections of misinformation, previously thought to carry a substantial of risk 'backfire effects', are generally effective, but may not be effective at reaching their intended audiences.
 
These important insights notwithstanding, this literature tends to treat fake news as specific instances of false information. In contrast, much less is known about how general awareness of fake news, a more cent phenomenon, affects democratic politics.
 
We address this deficit by theorizing about the consequences of awareness of fake news for receptivity to misinformation, and testing our theoretical expectations in an experiment. Drawing on earlier work in political communication and cognitive psychology, we hypothesize that by inducing media skepticism, awareness of fake news reduces individuals' receptivity to information provided in media coverage. In short, fake news awareness will lead to a general skepticism towards all information, also factual information. As a consequence, individuals induced to be more aware of fake news will be less likely to update beliefs and attitudes in response to new information.
 
We test these theoretical expectations in a high-powered, pre-registered experiment, to be conducted in early 2018. Cooperating with a national newspaper in Denmark, we distribute a survey experiment under the guise of a reader survey where respondents are asked to read and evaluate sample articles from the newspaper. By randomizing the content of the articles presented to readers, we can control the information to which they are exposed while maximizing ecological validity and minimizing the risk of demand effects.
 
In the survey, we first expose respondents to either a prime article designed to heighten their awareness of fake news, or a control condition with a placebo article. We then present readers with a news story about a fictional political figure containing either no information, negative misinformation, or negative misinformation as well as a subsequent correction. This 2 x 3 factorial design allows us to assess how priming awareness of fake news conditions receptivity to misinformation and its correction.
 
Building on earlier research using this paradigm, we expect that in the absence of primed awareness of fake news, the misinformation treatment strongly reduces approval of the fictional politician, and that he subsequent correction will nearly or fully remedy the negative effect of misinformation. Compared to this baseline condition, we expect subjects in the primed awareness condition to exhibit diminished receptivity to misinformation as well as the subsequent correction. In addition to measuring beliefs and attitudes about the politician covered in the news story, the key dependent variable of interest, we evaluate how primed awareness of fake news affects general measures of trust in media and political elites.
 
The study holds important implications for democratic politics. Specifically, if primed awareness of fake news reduces receptivity to (mis)information, media coverage of fake news may in itself promote media skepticism, even in a context far removed from the social media platforms where most fake news exposure occurs. Paradoxically, then, fact-checking outlets designed for combating fake news may inadvertently produce more of the media skepticism they were designed to curtail. Conversely, if priming awareness of fake news is inconsequential, media outlets can present factual corrections and discuss fake news with little risk of engendering additional media skepticism. We end with a discussion of fruitful avenues for future research in the study of misinformation and democratic citizenship.

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