When Veracity Fails: News Sharing as Expressive Partisanship

• In Event: Media and Political Attitudes

Abstract

There is an epidemic of fake news sharing in the US that raises questions about why people share this content. In this study we contrast two major motivations linked to the sharing of fake news: diminished concern about accuracy and heightened defensive partisan motivation. Past research has documented the success of an accuracy nudge in decreasing the spread of fake news because and heightening concerns about sharing accurate content (Pennycook and Rand 2017). Other research has shown the power of partisan motivation to increase the spread of fake news (Osmundsen et al 2021; Pereira et al 2023). We conducted two survey experiments designed to arouse acute accuracy and partisan motivations respectively in fully crossed factorial designs. An accuracy nudge was used to increase an acute accuracy motive, and a story enhancing or dampening partisan threat was used to manipulate levels of acute partisan defensiveness.
Study 1 involved 905 partisans obtained from Cloud Research and included a 2 X 2 design (accuracy/none vs. increase/decrease partisan threat). Study 2 involved 946 partisans drawn from the Bovitz/Forthright panel and included a 2 X 3 experimental design (accuracy/none X reduced threat/increased threat/no threat). Respondents were asked about their willingness to share a mix of true and fake headlines that were disparaging towards the outparty.
Across both studies, there was limited evidence that an accuracy nudge decreased the sharing of fake news. In Study 2, those high in chronic accuracy motivation (as measured by the cognitive reflection test) were less likely to share fake news when exposed to an accuracy nudge but the nudge did not influence the behavior of those low in CRT. But the accuracy nudge had no effect on news sharing in Study 1. The partisan threat manipulations also failed to influence partisan’s news sharing behavior (for either fake or true news). Instead, a chronic defensive motivation as measured by strong partisan identity (Huddy et al 2015) heavily influenced the willingness to spread bad news about the other party regardless of its veracity. This effect is observed when partisan identity strength is measured with the 4-item identity scale but is far weaker when partisan strength is measured with the typical 3-level ANES partisan strength measure (lean, not so strong, strong). The effect of partisan identity on the desire to share negative news about the other political party was large and consistent effects in both studies.
We conclude with a discussion on the difficulty in changing chronic partisan and accuracy motivations in a political context in which partisans have been heavily pre-treated with partisan threats. On the positive side, our research shows that not all partisans are willing to share negative content about the outparty. This behavior is most common among a subset of the strongest partisans. We also find that an accuracy nudge works best among a subset of Americans who score highly in cognitive reflection, helping to identify partisans for whom this technique works. Finally, we discuss evidence that strongly identified partisans are most inclined to view fake news as accurate and present preliminary findings on the link between rated story accuracy and the objectively rated veracity of a respondent’s news media environment.

Authors

• Leonie Huddy, SUNY, Stony Brook

• Joseph Sandor, Stony Brook University