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No News is Real News: How Political Partisanship Impacts Trust in News

Fri, August 31, 2:00 to 3:30pm, Marriott, Vineyard

Abstract

The 2016 election was fascinating; of particular interest to journalists and news junkies was the sudden influx of false information pushed to American voters and the simultaneous prevalence of accusations of “fake news” directed at legitimate news outlets. The idea that false information perpetrated by phony news outlets and socially engineered bots had an impact on voters is rapidly becoming an area of exploration (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Bessi & Ferrara, 2016; Shao, Ciampaglia, Varol, Flammini, & Menczer, 2017). Whether this fraudulent information impacted the election remains open to debate. One survey, however, found that when presented with fake news, the false information fooled people 75 percent of the time (Silverman & Singer-Vine, 2016). Simultaneous to the rise of fake news are accusations from President Donald Trump that many legitimate news outlets are perpetrating fake news. Trump himself has called outlets like the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, and others proprietors of fake news (Shafer, 2017). This onslaught against news may be one of the factors eroding trust in the public. Not only is trust in the media at an all-time low, but much of that distrust is driven by partisan politics (Swift, 2016). And while media trust hits all-time lows, partisanship is on the rise. Negative partisanship has been increasing steadily since the 1980s, and has seen a massive impact in American politics (Abramowitz & Webster, 2016).

This study will utilize a survey of 2,151 adults over the age of 18 in Texas examining media use, political participation, and other areas. This study will use the questions in the survey that asked respondents about their belief in news credibility, their belief they can spot fake news, if they have ever shared fake news online, and how often they check the accuracy of their news. All of this will be examined in regards to political partisanship. This research is particularly interested in respondents use of social media for sharing and consuming news.

Early results show that Republicans, especially those identifying as “strong Republicans,” believe the news they see is either not fully accurate or completely made up compared to Democrats. Both “strong Republicans” and “strong Democrats” were confident in their ability to spot fake news as compared to respondents who were not as strongly politically inclined.

This study will expand on research involving trustworthiness and credibility of news media. Our study will build upon the large body of work involving media credibility (Flanagin & Metzger, 2007; Golan, 2010; Johnson & Kaye, 2016; Oyedeji, 2007; Wanta & Hu, 1994). Adding a new dimension of partisanship to credibility could greatly change how researchers view credibility in the future.

References

Abramowitz, A. I., & Webster, S. (2016). The rise of negative partisanship and the nationalization of US elections in the 21st century. Electoral Studies, 41, 12–22.

Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election (Working Paper No. 23089). National Bureau of Economic Research. https://doi.org/10.3386/w23089

Bessi, A., & Ferrara, E. (2016). Social bots distort the 2016 US presidential election online discussion. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2982233

Flanagin, A. J., & Metzger, M. J. (2007). The role of site features, user attributes, and information verification behaviors on the perceived credibility of web-based information. New Media & Society, 9(2), 319–342. https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444807075015

Golan, G. J. (2010). New perspectives on media credibility research. American Behavioral Scientist, 54(1), 3–7.

Johnson, T. J., & Kaye, B. K. (2016). Some like it lots: The influence of interactivity and reliance on credibility. Computers in Human Behavior, 61, 136–145. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2016.03.012

Oyedeji, T. A. (2007). The relation between the customer-based brand equity of media outlets and their media channel credibility: An exploratory study. International Journal on Media Management, 9(3), 116–125. https://doi.org/10.1080/14241270701521725

Shafer, J. (2017, October 17). Trump’s fake jihad against the fake news. Retrieved December 18, 2017, from https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/10/17/trumps-jihad-fake-news-215722

Shao, C., Ciampaglia, G. L., Varol, O., Flammini, A., & Menczer, F. (2017). The spread of misinformation by social bots. arXiv:1707.07592 [Physics]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1707.07592

Silverman, C., & Singer-Vine, J. (2016). Most Americans who see fake news believe it, new survey says. BuzzFeed News.
Swift, A. (2016, September 14). Americans’ trust in mass media sinks to new low. Retrieved December 18, 2017, from http://news.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx

Wanta, W., & Hu, Y.-W. (1994). The effects of credibility, reliance, and exposure on media agenda-setting: A path analysis model. Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, 71(1), 90–98.

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