Echo Chambers and Misinformation: How Social Media Use Conditions Individuals to Believe Fake News
Year: 2019
Type: dissertation
Abstract: Research has suggested that personalized information streams on social media platforms (i.e., echo chambers) contribute to the proliferation of fake news. Using a combination of laboratory and survey experiments, I find that homogeneous discussion groups and echo chambers cause individuals to engage in more impulsive, affect-driven thought over deliberate, critical analysis. I also find that even when controlling for other factors, high social media use conditions individuals to believe fake material. While removing individuals from partisan echo chambers does make participants less susceptible to believing fake news, these effects appear confined to Democrats. Republican participants in echo chambers believe fake news to be true at similar rates to their counterparts who receive more heterogeneous information streams. This is important considering that the vast majority of fake news consumers are Republicans. My research suggests that breaking up echo chambers may only make a marginal difference in the spread of online misinformation.
Author: Samuel C. Rhodes
Language: English
Subfield: Sociology and Political Science
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2997765727