Social Sharing of Political Disinformation: Effects of Tie Strength, Message Valence, and Corrective Information on Evaluations of Political Figures

Abstract

Two studies investigated the effects of exposure to disinformation on citizens’ evaluation of politicians and the impact of corrections. Study 1 tested the roles of message valence and relational closeness of social media connections sharing disinformation. Study 2 examined whether corrections on social networking sites could mitigate the influence of disinformation. Results of the first study indicate a limited persuasive effect of disinformation, with negative disinformation being more entertaining but potentially less credible than positive disinformation. Effects of corrections in Study 2 were strong. There was no consistent influence of whether disinformation was shared by a close versus distant friend.

Keywords:

• Corrections
• Credibility
• Disinformation
• Fake News
• Tie Strength

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The results for all (M)ANOVAs did not differ when they were run using political interest as a covariate, except for the no longer significant main effect in the repeated measures analysis concerning RQ3; the significant interaction effect with message valence, showing that politician evaluations changed after the correction particularly for false negative information, however, does not change.

2. The items “objective“ (.217) and “informative“ (.200) touched the exclusion criterion set for high parallel loadings, but as they are central for the measure of credibility (see also Factor 1 of Study 1) they were kept in the computation of the credibility factor.

3. The results for all ANOVAs did not differ when they were run using political interest as a covariate.

4. One potential reason why participants in Study 1 rated the negative posts as less credible could be that the experiment was conducted during the time of the German federal election and well-known politicians were used in the stimulus material. Hence, the false negative information could have been rated less credible because individuals might have thought that if the information were true, they would probably have already heard about it in the media.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung [16KIS0773].

Notes on contributors

Leonie Schaewitz

Leonie Schaewitz received her Ph.D. in 2018 from the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, where she was a doctoral and postdoctoral researcher in the group Social Psychology: Media and Communication. For two years, she worked as a postdoctoral researcher in the cluster of excellence “Cyber Security in the age of large-scale adversaries (CASA)” at the Ruhr University Bochum. She now advances innovation and digitalization in the health care sector.

Andrew J. Flanagin

Andrew J. Flanagin, Ph.D. Andrew J. Flanagin is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he is a former Director of the Center for Information Technology and Society. His work broadly considers processes of social influence in digitally-mediated environments, with emphases on the use of social media for information sharing and assessment; people’s perceptions of the credibility of information gathered and presented online; and processes of collective organizing as influenced by the use of contemporary technologies.

Thomas Hoss

Thomas Hoss, M.Sc. Thomas Hoss is doctoral candidate in the department of Social- and Media Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany. He completed his master's degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, in 2019. His research focuses on digitization-related competencies of prospective teachers.

Lena Kölmel

Lena Kölmel, M.Sc. Lena Kölmel is doctoral candidate in the Institut für Arbeitswissenschaft und Betriebsorganisation at the Karlsruher Institute for Technology, Germany. She completed her master's degree in Applied Cognitive and Media Science at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany, in 2019. Her research focuses on artificial intelligence in working and learning environments.

Miriam J. Metzger

Miriam Metzger, Ph.D. Miriam Metzger is a Professor in the Department of Communication at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She studies problems of credibility, trust, and privacy that arise from digital information and communication technology.

Stephan Winter

Stephan Winter, Ph.D. Stephan Winter is Professor of Media Psychology at the University of Koblenz-Landau, Germany. His research interests include information selection as well as opinion formation and expression in social media. He completed his PhD at the University of Duisburg-Essen in 2012 and was an Assistant Professor of Persuasive Communication at the University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Nicole C. Krämer

Nicole Krämer, Ph.D. Nicole Krämer is Full Professor of Social Psychology, Media and Communication at the University of Duisburg-Essen, Germany. She completed her PhD in Psychology at the University of Cologne, Germany, in 2001 and received the venia legendi for psychology in 2006. Dr. Krämer´s research focuses on social psychological aspects of human-machine-interaction (especially social effects of robots and virtual agents) and computer-mediated-communication, specifically opinion formation in social media.