Fact-Checking and Fake News in Election 2016

• In Event: The Promise of Fact-Checking

Abstract

Can fact-checking help inform citizens? Little is known about who reads fact-checks or whether they are effective in informing the public. We report the results of the first study that evaluates whether people engage in selective exposure to fact-checking and what effects it has on what they know about politics. Our design is also unique in allowing us to analyze the websites participants visited in the weeks before and after taking the survey, which took place at the peak of the 2016 presidential general election campaign. These data enable us to provide the first comparison between respondents' self-reported interest in fact-checks and their actual real-world behavior and to compare consumption of fact-checking and so-called "fake news."

Authors

• Andrew Guess, Princeton University

• Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth College

• Jason A. Reifler, University of Exeter