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Testing the Effect of Information on Discerning the Veracity of News in Real Time

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 November 2023

Kevin Aslett*
Affiliation:
School of Politics, Security and International Affairs, University of Central Florida, Orlando, USA
Zeve Sanderson
Affiliation:
Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, USA
William Godel
Affiliation:
Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, USA
Nathaniel Persily
Affiliation:
Law School, Stanford University, Stanford, USA
Jonathan Nagler
Affiliation:
Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, USA Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University, New York, USA
Richard Bonneau
Affiliation:
Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, USA
Joshua A. Tucker
Affiliation:
Center for Social Media and Politics, New York University, New York, USA Wilf Family Department of Politics, New York University, New York, USA
*
Corresponding author: Kevin Aslett; Email: kevin.aslett@ucf.edu
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Abstract

Despite broad adoption of digital media literacy interventions that provide online users with more information when consuming news, relatively little is known about the effect of this additional information on the discernment of news veracity in real time. Gaining a comprehensive understanding of how information impacts discernment of news veracity has been hindered by challenges of external and ecological validity. Using a series of pre-registered experiments, we measure this effect in real time. Access to the full article relative to solely the headline/lede and access to source information improves an individual's ability to correctly discern the veracity of news. We also find that encouraging individuals to search online increases belief in both false/misleading and true news. Taken together, we provide a generalizable method for measuring the effect of information on news discernment, as well as crucial evidence for practitioners developing strategies for improving the public's digital media literacy.

Information

Type
Research Article
Creative Commons
Creative Common License - CCCreative Common License - BY
This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution and reproduction, provided the original article is properly cited.
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of American Political Science Association
Figure 0

Figure 1. Two-by-two table of different combinations of text and source information provided to each different group of respondents in study 1.

Figure 1

Figure 2. Diagram outlining study 2.

Figure 2

Figure 3. Marginal effects of providing the full text.

Figure 3

Figure 4. Marginal effects of providing the source.

Figure 4

Figure 5. Marginal effects of searching for additional information.

Figure 5

Figure 6. Marginal effects of searching for additional information.

Supplementary material: Link

Aslett et al. Dataset

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Supplementary material: PDF

Aslett et al. supplementary material

Aslett et al. supplementary material

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