Reinforcing attitudes in a gatewatching news era: individual-level antecedents to sharing fact-checks on social media

Despite the prevalence of fact-checking, little is known about who posts fact-checks online. Based upon a content analysis of Facebook and Twitter digital trace data and a linked online survey (N = 783), this study reveals that sharing fact-checks in political conversations on social media is linked to age, ideology, and political behaviors. Moreover, an individual’s need for orientation (NFO) is an even stronger predictor of sharing a fact-check than ideological intensity or relevance, alone, and also influences the type of fact-check format (with or without a rating scale) that is shared. Finally, participants generally shared fact-checks to reinforce their existing attitudes. Consequently, concerns over the effects of fact-checking should move beyond a limited-effects approach (e.g., changing attitudes) to also include reinforcing accurate beliefs.Accepted manuscrip

Correlating Self-Report and Trace Data Measures of Incivility: A Proof of Concept

This study correlated self-report and trace data measures of political incivility. Specifically, we asked respondents to provide estimates of the degree to which they engage in uncivil political communication online. These estimates were then compared to computational measures of uncivil social media discussion behavior. The results indicated that those who self-disclose uncivil online behavior also tend to generate content on social media that is uncivil as identified by Google's Perspective application programming interface. Taken as a whole, this work suggests that combining self-report and behavioral trace data may be a fruitful means of developing multimethod measures of complex communication behaviors

Is Ghost Blogging Like Speechwriting? A Survey of Practitioners About the Ethics of Ghost Blogging

Based on the support of 71.1% of the public relations practitioners in our online survey (total n=291), there is a general consensus in favor of undisclosed organizational ghost blogging, provided that the ideas for the content come from the stated author and the stated author gives content approval. Moreover, about half of the practitioners in our sample who had organizational blogs (53.7%) indicated that the blogs were not written by their stated authors. It is important to keep in mind, however, that the practice is not necessarily ethical just because many practitioners believe it is and just because many practitioners are engaging in it. This study explores reasons to support undisclosed organizational ghost blogging and reasons to reject it, so practitioners can make an informed decision until more research can be conducted to determine whether audience deception is occurring and to determine whether radical transparency provides a strategic advantage with regard to ghost blogging disclosure

Aggregate poll Web site use across the 2016 United States presidential election

This study examined citizens’ use of poll aggregation Web sites over the last nine weeks of the 2016 United States presidential campaign. The results suggested that usage frequency increases as election day approaches. Moreover, those with high levels of political interest and those that actively use media to obtain political information are most likely to access poll aggregation Web sites