Informational Moral Panic: The Indirect Effects of Misinformation

• In Event: The Online and Offline Effect of Misinformation

Abstract

Highlighted by rhetoric during the 2016 and 2020 U.S presidential elections, misinformation has become both a highly publicized and researched phenomenon (Al-Rawi, 2019). Scholars have studied how misinformation spreads (e.g., Vosoughi, Roy and Aral, 2018), whether individuals are likely to believe it (e.g., Pennycook et al, 2021; Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017), and whether it influences voter behavior (e.g., Gunther, Beck, & Nisbet, 2019). However, some have argued the publicity around the issue of misinformation may enhance its perceived threat, creating an ‘informational moral panic’ (Carlson, 2020; Mitchelstein, Matassi, & Bosckowski, 2020). For instance, there is evidence that political misinformation is neither prevalent nor has a substantial impact on attitudes or behaviors (Altay, Berich, & Acerbi, 2023). This project argues that the threat political misinformation poses to democracy may be indirect, stemming from its presumed influence on other voters rather than its direct impact on individuals.

The influence of presumed influence or IPI, has two causal mechanisms by which it can influence attitudes and behaviors – 1) how often it appears people are exposed to harmful content (i.e. prevalence) and 2) how likely exposure will lead to undesirable or harmful attitudes or behaviors (i.e. persuasiveness). We posit that the presumed influence of political misinformation may have second order effects, specifically an individual’s satisfaction with democracy in the context of an election. If citizens believe both that misinformation is widespread and that others believe in this misinformation, PIM or the presumed influence of misinformation, suggests that those individuals will have less confidence in the fairness and effectiveness of voting as a means of democratic decision-making.

This study explores whether informational moral panic around misinformation, specifically whether other voters are influenced, undermines democracy by impacting individual’s confidence in democratic governance itself. To do this we test the concept of PIM in two studies : a longitudinal online panel survey (N=962) and an online experiment (N=2177). Our eight-wave panel study took place during the 2020 US Presidential election, assessing the relationship between PIM and several measures of democratic satisfaction. Then, to assess the causal relationship more rigorously, we conducted the online experiment after the 2020 election. Our analyses consisted of a fixed effects model for our panel data and OLS regressions for the experiment.

In our 2020 online panel survey, we found that over the course of several months, changes in participants PIM were negatively correlated with democratic satisfaction. In other words, a participant who became more concerned about the prevalence and influence of misinformation from one wave to the next expressed a corresponding decrease in their satisfaction with US democracy. This is consistent with our claim that the moral panic about political misinformation has the potential to sow doubt about the legitimacy of democratic governance itself. The follow-up experiment suggests that the relationships in our panel study are causal, though the influence took a slightly different form than we predicted.

In sum, though misinformation has the potential to be harmful, so does the constant drum beat of fear about its consequences for democracy. The possibility that the mere mention of misinformation is enough to drive down American’s democratic satisfaction suggests that it is time to scholars and the press to rethink our approach to addressing this topic.

Authors

• Chloe R Mortenson, Northwestern University

• Erik C. Nisbet, Cornell University

• R. Kelly Garrett, Ohio State University