Educating for Democracy in a Partisan Age

TLDR

Youth judgments of truth claims are influenced by alignment with prior policy positions and, to a lesser extent, by the presence of inaccuracies, reflecting motivated reasoning. The study examines how youth judge the accuracy of controversial truth claims and explores whether political knowledge or media literacy education can improve these judgments. The authors conducted an experiment with 2,101 nationally representative youth, asking them to assess the accuracy of simulated online posts while also measuring political knowledge and media literacy exposure. Political knowledge had no effect on accuracy judgments, whereas media literacy education significantly improved them.

Abstract

This article investigates youth judgments of the accuracy of truth claims tied to controversial public issues. In an experiment embedded within a nationally representative survey of youth ages 15 to 27 ( N = 2,101), youth were asked to judge the accuracy of one of several simulated online posts. Consistent with research on motivated reasoning, youth assessments depended on (a) the alignment of the claim with one’s prior policy position and to a lesser extent on (b) whether the post included an inaccurate statement. To consider ways educators might improve judgments of accuracy, we also investigated the influence of political knowledge and exposure to media literacy education. We found that political knowledge did not improve judgments of accuracy but that media literacy education did.