Is That Source Credible? How Source Credibility Cues Help Mitigate Partisan Bias

• In Event: Attitudes Towards News

Abstract

While citizens may lack detailed political knowledge, individuals can utilize low-information rationality by turning to elites with a more detailed knowledge of politics (e.g. political officials, the media) to interpret political events and economize information. However, individuals are forced to navigate a political media environment that is oversaturated with sources, some of whom may lack relevant policy knowledge or have conflicts of interest. This has led scholars to debate whether citizens are willing or able to utilize low-information rationality. Prior work in this area often focuses on strong effects of partisanship, asserting that individuals are too blinded by their political biases to make effective use of elite opinions on important issues. This literature is refuted by a relatively smaller subset of works finding that the influence of partisanship is moderated by contextual cues. Utilizing a unique conjoint selection experiment design, I seek to directly address this debate while adding to the broader understanding of how individuals use source cues related to both expertise and honesty to seek out useful political information. This design places these cues in a competing context by simultaneously manipulating source credibility cues and partisan cues. Preliminary findings suggest that individuals are not completely blinded by partisanship and do take source credibility cues into account. While individuals maintain partisan biases, the presence of brief source credibility cues has a notable influence on what information individuals seek while also helping to somewhat mitigate the effects of partisanship-based selective exposure.

Author

• Adam L. Ozer, University of Houston