The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”

The 2016 US Presidential campaign saw an explosion in popularity for the term “fake news.” This phenomenon raises interesting questions: Which news sources do people believe are fake, and what do people think “fake news” means? One possibility is that beliefs about the news reflect a bias to disbeli...

Descripción completa

Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Michael, Robert B., Breaux, Brooke O.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Springer International Publishing 2021
Materias:
Original Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880518/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33580444
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00278-1
_version_ 1783650719921864704
author Michael, Robert B.
Breaux, Brooke O.
author_facet Michael, Robert B.
Breaux, Brooke O.
author_sort Michael, Robert B.
collection PubMed
description The 2016 US Presidential campaign saw an explosion in popularity for the term “fake news.” This phenomenon raises interesting questions: Which news sources do people believe are fake, and what do people think “fake news” means? One possibility is that beliefs about the news reflect a bias to disbelieve information that conflicts with existing beliefs and desires. If so, then news sources people consider “fake” might differ according to political affiliation. To test this idea, we asked people to tell us what “fake news” means, and to rate several news sources for the extent to which each provides real news, fake news, and propaganda. We found that political affiliation influenced people’s descriptions and their beliefs about which news sources are “fake.” These results have implications for people’s interpretations of news information and for the extent to which people can be misled by factually incorrect journalism.
format Online
Article
Text
id pubmed-7880518
institution National Center for Biotechnology Information
language English
publishDate 2021
publisher Springer International Publishing
record_format MEDLINE/PubMed
spelling pubmed-78805182021-02-16 The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news” Michael, Robert B. Breaux, Brooke O. Cogn Res Princ Implic Original Article The 2016 US Presidential campaign saw an explosion in popularity for the term “fake news.” This phenomenon raises interesting questions: Which news sources do people believe are fake, and what do people think “fake news” means? One possibility is that beliefs about the news reflect a bias to disbelieve information that conflicts with existing beliefs and desires. If so, then news sources people consider “fake” might differ according to political affiliation. To test this idea, we asked people to tell us what “fake news” means, and to rate several news sources for the extent to which each provides real news, fake news, and propaganda. We found that political affiliation influenced people’s descriptions and their beliefs about which news sources are “fake.” These results have implications for people’s interpretations of news information and for the extent to which people can be misled by factually incorrect journalism. Springer International Publishing 2021-02-12 /pmc/articles/PMC7880518/ /pubmed/33580444 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00278-1 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
spellingShingle Original Article
Michael, Robert B.
Breaux, Brooke O.
The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title_full The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title_fullStr The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title_full_unstemmed The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title_short The relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
title_sort relationship between political affiliation and beliefs about sources of “fake news”
topic Original Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7880518/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33580444
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s41235-021-00278-1
work_keys_str_mv AT michaelrobertb therelationshipbetweenpoliticalaffiliationandbeliefsaboutsourcesoffakenews
AT breauxbrookeo therelationshipbetweenpoliticalaffiliationandbeliefsaboutsourcesoffakenews
AT michaelrobertb relationshipbetweenpoliticalaffiliationandbeliefsaboutsourcesoffakenews
AT breauxbrookeo relationshipbetweenpoliticalaffiliationandbeliefsaboutsourcesoffakenews

Ejemplares similares