“Fake news” may have limited effects on political participation beyond increasing beliefs in false claims
Open accessAbstract
Since 2016, there has been an explosion of interest in misinformation and its role in elections. Research by news outlets, government agencies, and academics alike has shown that millions of Americans have been exposed to dubious political news online. However, relatively little research has focused on documenting the effects of consuming this content. Our results
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Misinformation has been shown not to easily change beliefs or political voting behavior.
“Additionally, misinformation has been shown not to easily change beliefs or political voting behavior (Bail et al., 2020; Guess et al., 2020).”
From Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media. (2024) · cites this paper as Guess et al., 2020
Finding 5 reports that randomized exposure to a dubious article increased belief in its central false claim. Finding 6 reports increased intent to vote, contrary to the cited sentence’s claim about resistance to change, although the paper measured voting intention rather than actual voting behavior. (LLM, conf=0.87)
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Cites
Iyengar, S., Sood, G., & Lelkes, Y. (2012) · Public Opinion Quarterly · doi:10.1093/poq/nfs038 · Cited by 2,748 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Research works printed but not linked: 8
- Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. (2018). Network propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press.
- Druckman, J. N. & Leeper, T. J. (2012). Learning more from political communication experiments: Pretreatment and its effects. American Journal of Political Science, 56(4), 875–896. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1540-5907.2012.00582.x · DOI
- Garrett, R. K., Gvirsman, S. D., Johnson, B. K., Tsfati, Y., Neo, R., & Dal, A. (2014). Implications of pro-and counter-attitudinal information exposure for affective polarization. Human Communication Research, 40(3), 309–332. https://doi.org/10.1111/hcre.12028 · DOI · Paper page
- Grinberg, N., Joseph, K., Friedland, L., Swire-Thompson, B., & Lazer, D. (2019). Fake news on Twitter during the 2016 U.S.presidential election. Science, 363(6425), 374–378. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aau2706 · DOI · Paper page
- Kalogeropoulos, A., Suiter, J., Udris, L., & Eisenegger, M. (2019). News media trust and news consumption: Factors related to trust in news in 35 countries. International Journal of Communication, 13. https://ijoc.org/index.php/ijoc/article/view/10141/2745
- Suhay, E., Bello-Pardo, E., & Maurer, B. (2018). The polarizing effects of online partisan criticism: Evidence from two experiments. International Journal of Press/Politics, 23(1), 95–115. https://doi.org/10.1177/1940161217740697 · DOI
- Tsfati, Y. & Cappella, J. N. (2003). Do people watch what they do not trust? Exploring the association between news media skepticism and exposure. Communication Research, 30(5), 504– 529. https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650203253371 · DOI
- Valentino, N. A., Brader, T., Groenendyk, E. W., Gregorowicz, K., & Hutchings, V. L. (2011). Election night’s alright for fighting: The role of emotions in political participation. Journal of Politics, 73(1), 156–170. https://doi.org/10.1017/s0022381610000939 · DOI
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Pennycook, G., & Rand, D. G. (2022) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-022-30073-5 · Cited by 270 · see citing works
Social Drivers and Algorithmic Mechanisms on Digital Media.
Metzler, H., & Garcia, D. (2024) · Perspectives on Psychological Science · doi:10.1177/17456916231185057 · Cited by 204 · see citing works
“Additionally, misinformation has been shown not to easily change beliefs or political voting behavior (Bail et al., 2020; Guess et al., 2020).”
BackgroundMisunderstanding the harms of online misinformation
Budak, C., Nyhan, B., Rothschild, D. M., Thorson, E., & Watts, D. J. (2024) · Nature · doi:10.1038/s41586-024-07417-w · Cited by 156 · see citing works
Self-citationLee, N., Nyhan, B., Reifler, J., & Flynn, D. J. (2021) · British Journal of Political Science · doi:10.1017/s000712342000037x · Cited by 39 · see citing works
Self-citationKingdom of Trolls? Influence Operations in the Saudi Twittersphere
Barrie, C., & Siegel, A. (2021) · Journal of Quantitative Description: Digital Media · doi:10.51685/jqd.2021.012 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
“A first cause for skepticism is that engagement with false or unreliable information promoted by coordinated IO campaigns may not actually affect behaviour or attitudes (Guess et al., 2020; Bail et al., 2020).”
Background
- Authors
- Guess, A. M., Lockett, D., Lyons, B., Montgomery, J. M., Nyhan, B., & Reifler, J.
- Affiliations
- Princeton University (US)
- Washington University in St. Louis (US)
- University of Utah (US)
- Dartmouth College (US)
- University of Exeter (GB)
- Venue
- Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review
- Published
- 2020-01-14
- ISSN
- 2766-1652 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W3000537807
- Cited by
- 69
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 10 · 2024: 8 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 8 · 2021: 20 · 2020: 4
- FWCI
- 14.35
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- diamond
- doi.org
- Licence
- cc-by
- Locations
- Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- ePrints Soton (University of Southampton) (acceptedVersion)
- DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
- Figshare (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Open Research Exeter (University of Exeter) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Misinformation and Its Impacts
- Social Sciences › Communication › Social Media and Politics
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Media Influence and Politics
- Keywords
- fake news, misinformation, political participation, false claims, political campaigns
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