Testing and unpacking the effects of digital fake news: on presidential candidate evaluations and voter support

There is growing worldwide concern that the rampant spread of digital fake news (DFN) via new media technologies is detrimentally impacting Democratic elections. However, the actual influence of this recent Internet phenomenon on electoral decisions has not been directly examined. Accordingly, this study tested the effects of attention to DFN on readers’ Presidential candidate preferences via an experimental web-survey administered to a cross-sectional American sample (N = 552). Results showed no main effect of exposure to DFN on participants’ candidate evaluations or vote choice. However, the perceived believability of DFN about the Democratic candidate negatively mediated evaluations of that candidate—especially amongst far-right ideologues. These results suggest that DFN may at worst reinforce the partisan dispositions of mostly politically conservative Internet users, but does not cause or induce conversions in these dispositions. Overall, this study contributes novel experimental evidence, indicating that the potential electoral impact of DFN, although concerning, is strongly conditional on a reciprocal interaction between message receptibility and a pre-existing right-wing ideological orientation. The said impact is, therefore, likely narrow in scope

Moderating effect of group cue while processing news on immigration: Is the framing effect a heuristic process

This paper presents a study on the sociocognitive effects of news frames on immigration. One hundred and eighty-six individuals were exposed to a newspaper story on increased immigration to Bryant and Miron (2004) clearly demonstrated the popularity of framing theory, which has emerged as one of the most developed and frequently cited perspectives in recent times. Research in this field seems to be in agreement that the way a social issue is approached in the news influences how that news is interpreted and shapes the attitudes of viewers Context: Immigration in Spain Before reviewing the state of research on framing and its explanatory mechanisms, it will be useful to provide background information on immigration in Spain withi

Information Availability And Congeniality, Selective Exposure, And Reinforcement Effect

This study examined the effect of information availability on selective exposure and the effect of selective exposure on attitude reinforcement through emotional arousal. Cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias theories were utilized as framework to answer the effect of information availability. For the attitude reinforcement through emotional arousal, cognitive dissonance, selective exposure, and affective intelligent theories were employed. This study employed a novel approach by utilizing different proportions of congenial and uncongenial information as experimental conditions, high congenial, high uncongenial, and control conditions, to test the effects of information availability on selective exposure. Results demonstrated that information availability affects selective exposure that information availability dominated attitude and political variables. Those in high congenial condition select greater congenial items and those in the high uncongenial condition read more uncongenial stories. Furthermore, selective exposure predicted attitude reinforcement through anxiety. Selective exposure reduced anxiety and reduced anxiety, in turn, strengthen attitude. Theoretical implication and suggestion for future research are discussed

The repetition and competition of news reporting as mediator to frame setting

The rapid spread of information in the world makes news reporting on the current issues around people grows as well.Framing analysis is a theoretical approach that has been considered as one of the indicators used to analyze how people understand the situations.With the diversity of perception, framing analysis too has changed. The competition of news reporting from various types of media gives the audiences more options to choose the frame which is considered right and suitable for them. Similarly, the media also take the initiatives by reporting a repeated news and information in order to provide information and insight to the reader as well as to capture their attention.Therefore, this study opens a new stream of framing analysis on how these two mediators are functional and capable of giving effect to the news framing

Stigmatising the Poor Without Negative Images: Images of Extreme Poverty and the Formation of Welfare Attitudes.

In the past two decades, many studies have warned of the role the popular media might play in the stigmatisation of the poor. Media reports about poverty often include references to antisocial behaviour, which make the principle of deservingness particularly conspicuous and could also strengthen the effects of ethnic stereotypes. We argue, however, that it could be misleading to place all the blame for stigmatisation on direct references to 'undeserving' behaviour. Media images of extreme distress themselves could have a selective stigmatising effect. Thus, even benevolent portrayal of the poor could erode sympathy. This paper presents the results of a video-vignette experiment on a sample of Hungarian students. The subjects watched one of four versions of a video interview with a poor person (none of them contained any references to antisocial behaviour) and then expressed their attitudes towards welfare payments. We found that support for welfare was higher where a version highlighted signs of extreme distress. But this was only the case if there were no mention of ethnic minorities. If the video report emphasized that Roma (Gypsies), the largest disadvantaged minority group in Hungary, lived in the neighbourhood, signs of their extreme hardship lowered the support for welfare payments

Knowledge Resistance in High-Choice Information Environments

This book offers a truly interdisciplinary exploration of our patterns of engagement with politics, news, and information in current high-choice information environments. Putting forth the notion that high-choice information environments may contribute to increasing misperceptions and knowledge resistance rather than greater public knowledge, the book offers insights into the processes that influence the supply of misinformation and factors influencing how and why people expose themselves to and process information that may support or contradict their beliefs and attitudes. A team of authors from across a range of disciplines address the phenomena of knowledge resistance and its causes and consequences at the macro- as well as the micro-level. The chapters take a philosophical look at the notion of knowledge resistance, before moving on to discuss issues such as misinformation and fake news, psychological mechanisms such as motivated reasoning in processes of selective exposure and attention, how people respond to evidence and fact-checking, the role of political partisanship, political polarization over factual beliefs, and how knowledge resistance might be counteracted. This book will have a broad appeal to scholars and students interested in knowledge resistance, primarily within philosophy, psychology, media and communication, and political science, as well as journalists and policymakers

Framing Effects of Online News Survey Results on Individual Heuristics

Indonesians often consume online news presenting figures of survey results, not only political news but other news as well, for instance, a news headline stated that 63 percent of people on average agreed to a cabinet reshuffle. Strangely enough, it was not stated 37 percent of people on average did not agree to a cabinet reshuffle, which has the same meaning. An attractive frame of online news will potentially get clicks from its audience. In theories of framing effect, news framing in general has a cognitive effect on the audience, including the framing of survey results. However, an opposing view suggests that the advent of new media, especially the internet and Web 2.0 technology, has changed the fundamental order of mass communication, which leads to a minimum effect of new media framing and difficulty in measuring them due to the emergence of preference-based effects as a natural attribute of the online media environment. This interesting research tries to examine the effects of framing in the realm of psychology, which is still quite rarely done in studies on framing effects, by using experimental quantitative methods that test individual evaluation heuristics. The framing of survey results turned out to have an effect on the heuristic assessment of the individual reader. The study prove that the framing effects remain even in new media platforms. The findings presented in this article are expected to contribute to the development of framing theories and media effects

Framing and Moral Motives: The Interaction Between Moral Foundations and Political Identity in Predicting Motives

Current research suggests that there are differences in the moral foundations of liberals and conservatives. Liberals’ moral foundations tend to focus on issues of fairness, equality, and social justice while conservatives’ focus on issues of authority, purity, and social order. Framing political issues in the context of moral foundations such as harm or purity can cause a change in political attitudes. The current study examines whether framing issues in the context of harm or purity affects approach (social justice, self-reliance) and avoidance (social order, self-restraint) moral motives, and examines the role of high activation negative emotions in this process. It was expected that framing issues using the harm foundation, would increase social justice motives, especially among conservatives. Results showed that when political issues were framed to induce feelings of causing or avoiding harm, conservatives showed more motivation toward social justice concerns. In contrast, framing had no effect on the social justice motives of liberals. High activation negative emotions played no role in this relationship. Also, framing had no effect on self-reliance, social order, or self-restraint motives among conservatives or liberals. These results suggest that conservatives’ social justice motives can be increased by framing political issues to induce feelings of causing or avoiding harm. This could be a consideration when developing political communication strategies to promote social justice motives