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Social Media Has Remarkably Small Impact on Americans' Beliefs, Research Finds

posted by martyb on Thursday March 28 2019, @07:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the let's-get-social dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

Social media has remarkably small impact on Americans’ beliefs:

Social media had only a small influence on how much people believed falsehoods about candidates and issues in the last two presidential elections, a pair of new national studies found.

And Facebook -- which came under fire for spreading misinformation in the 2016 campaign -- actually reduced misperceptions by users in that election compared to those who consumed only other social media.

The results suggest that we need to put the dangers of social media spreading misinformation in perspective, said R. Kelly Garrett, author of the study and professor of communication at The Ohio State University.

"Given the amount of attention given to the issue, it may seem surprising that social media doesn't have a larger impact on Americans' belief in falsehoods," Garrett said.

Journal Reference:
R. Kelly Garrett. Social media’s contribution to political misperceptions in U.S. Presidential elections. PLOS ONE, 2019; 14 (3): e0213500 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213500

The study lets Facebook off the hook for influencing the 2016 election. Further, the study found, "Results showed that, overall, Republicans beliefs tended to be less accurate than those of Democrats, which made sense because the falsehoods were a prominent part of the Republican campaign strategy, Garrett said."

There you have it. It's science.

Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:08PM (3 children)

    by FatPhil (863) <reversethis-{if.fdsa} {ta} {tnelyos-cp}> on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:08PM (#821493) Homepage
    This image, from the paper, seems to contradict the claim that there was little influence:
    https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/figure/image?size=medium&id=info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0213500.g002

    THe influence was different for different duhmographics, but that doesn't mean there's no influence. The influence of diet on health is different for those who have different diets (those who have a healthy diet benefit from their diet, those who have a shitty diet are harmed by more of it).

    I won't spoil it, it's worth spending the 20 seconds working out what it says about whom (and how appropiate my diet analogy is).

    And for the poster elsethread I just modded troll - I reckon the person you mention fits into one of the upper lines.
    --
    Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Moderation   +1  
       Interesting=1, Total=1
    Extra 'Interesting' Modifier   0  
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   3  

  • (Score: 2) by DannyB on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:34PM (2 children)

    by DannyB (5839) Subscriber Badge on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:34PM (#821504) Journal

    Here is a lickable clink [plos.org] to your graphic.

    --
    The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.