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New report: Debunking “echo chamber” hype
From a new Knight Foundation report co-authored with Andrew Guess, Benjamin Lyons, and Jason Reifler: Is the expansion of media choice good for democracy? Not according to critics who decry “echo chambers,” “filter bubbles,” and “information cocoons” — the highly polarized, ideologically homogeneous forms of news and media consumption that are facilitated by technology. However,
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New NYT: Persuasion effects of fake news overblown
From my new Upshot column: How easy is it to change people’s votes in an election? The answer, a growing number of studies conclude, is that most forms of political persuasion seem to have little effect at all. This conclusion may sound jarring at a time when people are concerned about the effects of the
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New research on fake news consumption in 2016
My new research on fake news consumption with Andrew Guess and Jason Reifler: Selective Exposure to Misinformation: Evidence from the consumption of fake news during the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign Though some warnings about online “echo chambers” have been hyperbolic, tendencies toward selective exposure to politically congenial content are likely to extend to misinformation and
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“You’re Fake News!” The Poynter Media Trust Survey
From a new report released yesterday (co-authored with Andy Guess and Jason Reifler): During the Trump presidency, the United States has witnessed unprecedented attacks on the press from the highest office in the land. It is essential to understand how these attacks have affected attitudes toward the press. This report presents results of a public
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New Monkey Cage: A new way to fight misinformation
From my new Monkey Cage post (co-authored with Yusaku Horiuchi): State-sponsored propaganda like the recently unmasked @TEN_GOP Twitter account is of very real concern for our democracy. But we should not allow the debate over Russian interference to crowd out concerns about homegrown misinformation, which was vastly more prevalent during and after the 2016 election…
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New NYT: Facebook’s fact-checking should be checked
From my new Upshot column: Since the 2016 presidential campaign, Facebook has taken a number of actions to prevent the continued distribution of false news articles on its platform, most notably by labeling articles rated as false or misleading by fact checkers as “disputed.” But how effective are these measures? To date, Facebook has offered
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New Bright Line Watch survey results
The results of our third survey of the state of American democracy are out: Given widespread concern about the possible erosion of democracy in the United States, Bright Line Watch has conducted expert surveys since early 2017 asking thousands of professional political scientists to identify the dimensions of democracy they see as most important and
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New NYT: Why Puerto Rico misperceptions matter
From my new Upshot column (co-authored with Kyle Dropp): More than three million Americans in Puerto Rico are struggling to meet basic needs after a devastating strike from Hurricane Maria, but their plight seems to be attracting far less public or political attention than the woes caused by the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida.
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New Politico Magazine: Why norms matter
From my new article in the ideas issue of Politico Magazine: The calls for Donald Trump to release his tax returns began early during the campaign and never really let up. It was easy to assume he eventually would make good on his promises to turn them over. Every president since Jimmy Carter had released
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New Vox interview on Trump’s misinformation
I’m interviewed by Carlos Maza of Vox in this video about the difficulty of correcting Donald Trump’s misinformation. Here’s the text introduction: President Donald Trump made roughly 500 false statements in the first 200 days of his presidency, according to the Toronto Star’s Daniel Dale. That’s an impressive amount of misinformation, and it’s turned news