3/18/2023 0 Comments A false notion definition792) stated that a person is misinformed when he or she “firmly the wrong information.” In a study of Illinois residents, the authors found that people had erroneous beliefs about welfare policy, such as the size of the typical welfare payment and the characteristics of people receiving assistance. In the final section of our review, we highlight key insights that have accrued and note where progress has yet to be made. As we note there, the answer to this question has important implications for the study of misinformation as well as the interpretation of survey data more generally. The fourth section considers an important and unresolved puzzle raised by this nascent body of work: whether people's reports of their own factual beliefs are genuine or are instead a form of partisan cheap talk. As research on misinformation has evolved, researchers have posed new questions, the most intriguing of which pertain to measurement. Our third section summarizes this body of work, which spans the disciplines of political science, communications, and psychology. Next, we canvass the literature on how to correct misinformation and, more fundamentally, whether it can be corrected. In the second section, on causes, we discuss the psychological origins of misinformation, focusing on the various motivations that influence the reasoning process and that can cause people to become misinformed. We begin by defining political misinformation and distinguishing it from related concepts such as rumors and conspiracy belief. This review evaluates what scholars have learned since the publication of that study, with an emphasis on research conducted in the United States. 812) observed that the “misinformation landscape” needed exploration, and the authors suggested several areas for future research. 621) write, the American political system currently “abounds” with misinformation.Īt the time of their writing, Kuklinski et al. (2000), does not seem to have abated if anything, Bode & Vraga (2015, p. 127) observe that misinformation has “distorted people's views about some of the most consequential issues in politics, science and medicine.” The problem, initially articulated by Kuklinski et al. 14) refer to this phenomenon as “dangerous,” and Flynn et al. Yet an even greater concern is misinformation, which occurs when people hold incorrect factual beliefs and do so confidently ( Kuklinski et al. Overall, scholarly research on political misinformation illustrates the many challenges inherent in representative democracy.īecause political knowledge is widely viewed as a foundation for representative democracy ( Delli Carpini & Keeter 1996), the low level and uneven distribution of this resource have raised serious normative questions ( Althaus 2003, Gilens 2001). Finally, a nascent line of research asks whether people's reports of their factual beliefs are genuine or are instead a form of partisan cheerleading. By contrast, although there is an extensive body of research on how to correct misinformation, this literature is less coherent in its recommendations. Over time, scholars have elaborated on the psychological origins of political misinformation, and this work has cumulated in a productive way. We conclude that research on this topic has developed unevenly. In this review, we assess the empirical literature on political misinformation in the United States and consider what scholars have learned since the publication of that early study. The problem, first conceptualized by Kuklinski and colleagues in 2000, plagues political systems and is exceedingly difficult to correct. Misinformation occurs when people hold incorrect factual beliefs and do so confidently.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |