Dataset Information

Nevertheless, partisanship persisted: fake news warnings help briefly, but bias returns with time.

ABSTRACT: Politically oriented "fake news"-false stories or headlines created to support or attack a political position or person-is increasingly being shared and believed on social media. Many online platforms have taken steps to address this by adding a warning label to articles identified as false, but past research has shown mixed evidence for the effectiveness of such labels, and many prior studies have looked only at either short-term impacts or non-political information. This study tested three versions of fake news labels with 541 online participants in a two-wave study. A warning that came before a false headline was initially very effective in both discouraging belief in false headlines generally and eliminating a partisan congruency effect (the tendency to believe politically congenial information more readily than politically uncongenial information). In the follow-up survey two weeks later, however, we found both high levels of belief in the articles and the re-emergence of a partisan congruency effect in all warning conditions, even though participants had known just two weeks ago the items were false. The new pre-warning before the headline showed some small improvements over other types, but did not stop people from believing the article once seen again without a warning. This finding suggests that warnings do have an important immediate impact and may work well in the short term, though the durability of that protection is limited.

SUBMITTER: Grady RH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8299168 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

ACCESS DATA

Publications

Nevertheless, partisanship persisted: fake news warnings help briefly, but bias returns with time.

Grady Rebecca Hofstein RH Ditto Peter H PH Loftus Elizabeth F EF

Cognitive research: principles and implications 20210723 1

Politically oriented "fake news"-false stories or headlines created to support or attack a political position or person-is increasingly being shared and believed on social media. Many online platforms have taken steps to address this by adding a warning label to articles identified as false, but past research has shown mixed evidence for the effectiveness of such labels, and many prior studies have looked only at either short-term impacts or non-political information. This study tested three ver ...[more]

PMID: 34297248

Similar Datasets

Project description:BackgroundProliferation of misinformation in digital news environments can harm society in a number of ways, but its dangers are most acute when citizens believe that false news is factually accurate. A recent wave of empirical research focuses on factors that explain why people fall for the so-called fake news. In this scoping review, we summarize the results of experimental studies that test different predictors of individuals' belief in misinformation.MethodsThe review is based on a synthetic analysis of 26 scholarly articles. The authors developed and applied a search protocol to two academic databases, Scopus and Web of Science. The sample included experimental studies that test factors influencing users' ability to recognize fake news, their likelihood to trust it or intention to engage with such content. Relying on scoping review methodology, the authors then collated and summarized the available evidence.ResultsThe study identifies three broad groups of factors contributing to individuals' belief in fake news. Firstly, message characteristics-such as belief consistency and presentation cues-can drive people's belief in misinformation. Secondly, susceptibility to fake news can be determined by individual factors including people's cognitive styles, predispositions, and differences in news and information literacy. Finally, accuracy-promoting interventions such as warnings or nudges priming individuals to think about information veracity can impact judgements about fake news credibility. Evidence suggests that inoculation-type interventions can be both scalable and effective. We note that study results could be partly driven by design choices such as selection of stimuli and outcome measurement.ConclusionsWe call for expanding the scope and diversifying designs of empirical investigations of people's susceptibility to false information online. We recommend examining digital platforms beyond Facebook, using more diverse formats of stimulus material and adding a comparative angle to fake news research.

Dataset Information

Nevertheless, partisanship persisted: fake news warnings help briefly, but bias returns with time.

Publications

Nevertheless, partisanship persisted: fake news warnings help briefly, but bias returns with time.

Similar Datasets

OmicsDI is part of the ELIXIR infrastructure

Tweets