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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.
(Score: 2) by rigrig on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:36PM (3 children)
Obviously you face a "few" problems when trying to study these kind of things...
Statistics to the rescue!
But now we have another problem...
That won't make decent headlines...
But by predicting that social media have a lot of influence, the outcome becomes that it is
That'll do nicely.
No one remembers the singer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 28 2019, @08:43PM (1 child)
Social media only entrenched the views held by liberals/conservatives from their existing meatspace social network, and televised new sources. The republicans particularly, but also democrats to a lesser extent parroting verbatim soundbytes and 'facts' that were told to them by mainstream news (on both sides of the aisle) followed by whichever political buddies they enjoy sucking the cock of.
Independent thinking in America, whether you are 18 or 80 seems to be in short supply in America, and denialism is the status quo.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hemocyanin on Thursday March 28 2019, @10:17PM
Exactly correct -- at least my experience is that people do not go on major social media sites for debate/discourse. They go there to fight.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 29 2019, @08:32AM
How are you going to determine if something is fake news? Seriously, what if YOU are the one believing fake news?
The popular "fact checker" web sites have a bias that is obvious in two ways. One, similar statements are rated true or false based at least partly on who says them. Two, if you look at the founders and ownership, it is clear that these are people who strongly support the left. It is no accident that Hillary was openly pushing these web sites right in the middle of a debate; they are a funded part of the propaganda machine.
Simply put, there is no truth oracle.