Authoritarian and Nonauthoritarian Response to Fact-Checking

• In Event: Journalism and Journalists

Abstract

Fact checking has become an important component of modern news coverage of politics and political campaigns. Today newspapers, national network and cable news television, and online organization provide real time and after the event fact-checking of political candidates statements. However, a growing body of research suggests that citizen’s political and demographic characteristics mediate the influence of fact-checks making some citizens more or less likely to incorporate fact-checking information into their political decision-making. In this paper I explore how one political characteristic – level of authoritarianism – mediates the influence of fact-check messaging during the 2016 presidential election. Drawing on the vast literatures of persuasion and authoritarianism, I explore how fact-check messages influence authoritarian and nonauthoritarian personalities perceptions of Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump’s economic speeches. Specifically I ask, do authoritarian personalities respond differently to corrective information than nonauthoritarian personalities? And how are authoritarians and nonauthoritarians influenced by exposure to confirming or corrective information during elections?

To determine the influence of fact-checks on authoritarians and nonauthoritarians assessments of candidates and their political messages, I conduct an original experiment using the 2016 open presidential election between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. The experiment employed a nationally representative sample (N=961) recruited by Survey Sampling International in the weeks leading up to the 2016 presidential election. The experiment took place over two waves. In the first wave, respondents were asked about their opinions toward the media, fact-checking, and their partisan and ideological affiliations. I also incorporated a panel of four child-rearing questions to determine each respondent’s level of commitment to authoritarian values. In the second wave, respondents were first exposed to an edited version of Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump’s 2016 economic speech followed by a fact-check of the speech. I varied the content of the fact-check of the candidate’s economic speeches (e.g., speech was accurate; speech was inaccurate), as well as the source of the fact-check (i.e., MSNBC, Fox News, PolitiFact). Additionally, in four of the conditions respondents were given the opportunity to choose the source of the fact-check to which they were exposed.

The 2016 election is well suited to studying attitudes of authoritarian and nonauthoritarian personalities because these individuals tend to behave differently under threatening conditions. In 2016, the election focused heavily on issues that have historically divided high and low authoritarian personalities (e.g., immigration, terrorism, and economic insecurity). Moreover, Donald Trump displayed textbook strong man tactics during the campaign that are preferred by those in our society who occupy the authoritarian end of the authoritarian-nonauthoritarian scale. In line with the literature on authoritarian personalities, I find that nonauthoritarians are more responsive to corrective information than authoritarians. Indeed, research has demonstrated a need for cognition and commitment to accuracy among nonauthoritarian individuals, while authoritarian personalities are less likely to change their minds when challenged by new information. These findings add to our understanding of how citizens are influenced by factual information about politics and raise additional questions about the state of our democracy when a group of citizens are unpersuaded by facts.

Author

• Amanda Wintersieck, Virginia Commonwealth University