1. Counting the Pinocchios: The effect of summary fact-checking data on perceived accuracy and favorability of politicians
- Author
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Alexander Wasdahl, Alexandra Woodruff, Nikita Bakhru, Devyn Greenberg, Joseph Kind, Alexander Hurt, Alexander Agadjanian, Clara Wang, Mackinley Tan, Ray Lu, Annie Ma, Byrne Hollander, Victoria Chi, Daniel Pham, Brendan Nyhan, and Michael Qian
- Subjects
Political psychology ,Public Administration ,Sociology and Political Science ,business.industry ,05 social sciences ,Fact checking ,050801 communication & media studies ,lcsh:Political science ,Public relations ,False accusation ,0506 political science ,0508 media and communications ,Political Science and International Relations ,Accountability ,050602 political science & public administration ,Misinformation ,Psychology ,business ,lcsh:J - Abstract
Can the media effectively hold politicians accountable for making false claims? Journalistic fact-checking assesses the accuracy of individual public statements by public officials, but less is known about whether this process effectively imposes reputational costs on misinformation-prone politicians who repeatedly make false claims. This study therefore explores the effects of exposure to summaries of fact-check ratings, a new format that presents a more comprehensive assessment of politician statement accuracy over time. Across three survey experiments, we compared the effects of negative individual statement ratings and summary fact-checking data on favorability and perceived statement accuracy of two prominent elected officials. As predicted, summary fact-checking had a greater effect on politician perceptions than individual fact-checking. Notably, we did not observe the expected pattern of motivated reasoning: co-partisans were not consistently more resistant than supporters of the opposition party. Our findings suggest that summary fact-checking is particularly effective at holding politicians accountable for misstatements.
- Published
- 2019