The Paranoid Style and the Rise of Fake News in American Politics

• In Event: Fake News, Misinformation, and Conspiracy Theories

Abstract

In 1964, historian Richard Hofstadter authored the seminal text, The Paranoid Style in American Politics. Fifty-five years later in an era now littered with “fake news” websites and conspiracy theories that can spread rapidly over the Internet, Hofstadter’s investigation into “the politics of the irrational” warrants revisiting. In the paper that I propose to present at the American Political Science Association’s annual conference, my research draws on the concept of the “paranoid style” originally developed by Hofstadter, but with a quantitative twist. Psychologists Allan Fenigstein and Peter Vanable developed a now widely used survey instrument to assess paranoid thought (see “Paranoia and Self-Consciousness” in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1992, Vol. 62, No. 1, 129-138). Using data from an original nationwide and demographically representative survey of more than 1,000 adults that combines the Fenigstein and Vanable paranoia instrument with questions about popular present-day political conspiracies and well-publicized fake news stories, my research asks a few basic questions: How pervasive is the “paranoid style” among Americans today? Is there a relationship between paranoia and one’s willingness to accept or deny established political facts (e.g., Hillary Clinton won the popular vote in the 2016 election, or Barack Obama is a Christian). Drawing on Hofstadter’s earlier work to build a deeper theory about the “paranoid style,” I hypothesize that paranoia plays a significant role in understanding why some Americans are more susceptible than others to accepting fake news stories and to denying political facts.

The results of this research raise potentially serious implications for democratic theory, which holds that an informed citizenry is necessary for elections and government to function properly (see e.g., Dahl 1956; Achen and Bartels 2016). As James Madison once warned, “A popular Government, without popular information, or the means of acquiring it, is but a Prologue to a Farce or a Tragedy; or, perhaps both” (quoted in Lupia and McCubbins 1998, 1). The reasons for these concerns are clear. Democratic theory holds that citizens must make rational choices consistent with their self-interest (Downs 1957). When that process breaks down, elections and governance may reflect preferences inconsistent with the wants and needs of the majority. Indeed, research shows that increased political knowledge correlates with more rational voting behavior (Bartels 1996; Lau, Anderson, and Redlawsk 2008). Moreover, a society rife with poorly informed citizens cannot engage in the type of informed deliberation considered necessary for a healthy democracy (see e.g., Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996). Thus, by examining the theory of the “paranoid style” in today’s modern context, this research offers potentially useful insights into better understanding how and why people come to accept fake news and misinformation – a phenomenon with clear and obvious implications for the future of American democracy.

Author

• Peter L. Francia, East Carolina University