Year: 2015
Type: article
Abstract: An attempt to understand misinformation, and particularly the role the internet might play in it, suggests an emphasis on how individual internet users decide what to believe. Given the social nature of the internet, an essential component of belief formation must be an evaluation of cognitive authority and the means by which any knowledge source claims to have it. A content analysis of user comments about vaccine safety reveals the evaluation of cognitive authority to be a rich and complex set of negotiations among internet users. Certain characteristics of the internet seem to enhance the experience of evidence evaluation in ways that complicate underlying assumptions about how people believe. While the internet would seem to be a collection of secondhand knowledge, it is also rife with exaltation of firsthand knowledge as a superior, and uniquely accessible, means of knowing.
Author: Colin Doty
Institution: University of California, Los Angeles
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2277733138