Study finds news environment hurts ability to find truth
Jeff Grabmeier, Ohio State News
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| Getty Images, via Daily Kos |
Researchers found that liberals and
conservatives in the United States both tended to believe claims that promoted
their political views, but that this more often led conservatives to accept
falsehoods while rejecting truths.
One of the main drivers of the findings appeared
to be the American media and information environment.
“Both liberals and conservatives tend to make errors that are influenced by what is good for their side,” said Kelly Garrett, co-author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.
“But the deck is stacked against conservatives
because there is so much more misinformation that supports conservative
positions. As a result, conservatives are more often led astray.”
Garrett conducted the study with Robert Bond, associate professor of communication at
Ohio State. Their results were published today (June 2, 2021) in the journal Science Advances.
The study involved 1,204 American adults who
participated online between January and June 2019.
Every two weeks, the researchers identified
viral political news stories, 10 true and 10 false, that received high social
media engagement.
The researchers then asked participants to
assess a series of 20 statements that were based on these stories. Participants
labeled each one as true or false and indicated how confident they were in
their label.
In the end, participants had evaluated as many
as 240 statements on a broad range of topics and representing many different
viewpoints.
A separate group of people, recruited online,
were surveyed to determine whether the claims, if true, would be better for
liberals or for conservatives, or if they were neutral.
Overall, both liberals and conservatives were
more likely to believe stories that favored their side – whether they were true
or not.
The differences in beliefs were often stark,
Garrett said.
For example, participants rated this true
statement that received widespread social media engagement when it came out:
“Investigators for the DHS Office of the Inspector General have identified poor
conditions in several Texas migrant facilities, including extreme overcrowding
and serious health risks.”
Results showed that 54% of Democrats correctly
said that the statement was “definitely true” – compared to only 18% of
Republicans.
Another statement – a false one – was “While
serving as Sec. of State, Hillary Clinton colluded with Russia, selling 20% of the
U.S. uranium supply to that country in exchange for donations to the Clinton
Foundation.”
Here, only 2% of Democrats said this was
“definitely true,” but 41% of Republicans did.
“These are important factual claims, yet we see
vast partisan differences in belief,” Garrett said.
One of the major issues identified in the study
was that these widely shared truths and falsehoods have different implications
for liberals and conservatives.
Two-thirds (65%) of the high-engagement true
statements were characterized as benefiting liberals, while only 10% of
accurate claims were considered beneficial to conservatives. On the other side,
46% of falsehoods were rated as advantageous to conservatives, compared to 23%
of false claims benefiting liberals.
“We saw that viral political falsehoods tended
to benefit conservatives, while truths tended to favor liberals. That makes it
a lot harder for conservatives to avoid misperceptions,” Garrett said.
Although the information environment was the
primary reason conservatives were susceptible to misinformation, it may not be
the only one.
Results showed that even when the information
environment was taken into account, conservatives were slightly more likely to
hold misperceptions than were liberals.
“It is difficult to say why that is,” Garrett
said. “We can’t explain the finding with our data alone.”
Results did show further distinctions between
how conservatives and liberals approached the political claims in the viral
stories they evaluated.
Liberals showed greater overall sensitivity,
which characterizes an individual’s ability to distinguish truths and
falsehoods. Conservatives and liberals were equally good at detecting truths
and falsehoods when most true stories were labeled politically neutral.
But if more of the factually accurate stories
were labeled political – benefiting either liberal or conservative positions –
liberals became better than conservatives at distinguishing true from false
statements.
“Conservatives did not get any worse, but they
did not keep up with liberals who were getting better at discerning truths and
falsehoods,” Garrett said.
Conservatives also showed a stronger “truth
bias,” meaning that they were more likely to say that all the claims they were
asked about were true.
“That’s a problem because some of the claims
were outlandish – there should have been no ambiguity about whether they were
true or not,” he said.
Garrett said a strength of this study, compared
to many previous ones, is that it analyzed a wide range of political claims,
reflecting the diversity of the media environment that Americans are exposed
to. It clearly confirms the point made by many media commentators that
conservatives are awash in false statements that support what they want to
believe.
“We show that the media environment is shaping
people’s ability to do this very basic, fundamental task. Democracy depends on
people being able to tell the difference between what is true and false and it
falters when people have difficulty agreeing on what’s real,” he said.