Exposure, Not Motivation: Polarization and Sharing Online Misinformation

• In Event: The Foundations of Political Misinformation

Abstract

The spread of misinformation on social media has become a central concern in American politics, fueling a growing literature on what motivates people to share false and misleading content. Recent research concludes that political polarization is the primary cause of sharing of misinformation, citing correlations between polarization and sharing fake news on Twitter. However, such findings may simply reflect that polarized Americans are more exposed to misinformation, not that they are more motivated to share it. Correlations between polarization and sharing misinformation may therefore reflect either greater demand for, or exposure to, fake news among more polarized Americans. We disentangle these competing explanations by examining news sharing in an information environment with a balanced supply of news, with equal amounts of real and fake content. Respondents recruited by YouGov were each exposed to 20 political headlines and reported their likelihood of sharing each. We use this design to measure differences in sharing discernment—the extent to which more real news is shared relative to fake news. Contrary to recent work, we find strong evidence that polarization is associated with *greater* sharing discernment when holding exposure constant, suggesting that polarization may lead to differential exposure to misinformation, but not differential motivations to share it.

Authors

• Brian Guay, Stony Brook University

• Gordon Pennycook, University of Regina

• David Rand, Massachusetts Institute of Technology