False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era

False Alarm: The Truth About Political Mistruths in the Trump Era
ISBN-10
1108750400
ISBN-13
9781108750400
Series
False Alarm
Category
Political Science
Language
English
Published
2019-09-30
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
Authors
Thomas J. Wood, Ethan Porter

Description

Americans are not invulnerable to factual information. They do not 'backfire'; facts do not make them less accurate. Instead, they become more accurate, even when corrections target co-partisans. Corrections of fake news yield similar results. Among Republicans, Trump's misstatements are less susceptible to corrections than identical misstatements attributed to other Republicans. While we do not observe facts affecting attitudes, multiple instances of misinformation can increase approval of the responsible politician - but corrections can reduce approval by similar amounts. While corrections do not eliminate false beliefs, they reduce the share of inaccurate beliefs among subjects in this study nearly in half.

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