You are fake news: political bias in perceptions of fake news

TLDR

The rise of fake news threatens societies worldwide, yet little is known about the public’s associations with the term. This study investigates the “fake news effect,” a partisan bias where individuals use the term to discount ideologically uncongenial media. Using a national US sample of 1,000 participants, we elicited top‑of‑mind associations with the term “fake news.” Both liberals and conservatives associate left‑wing outlets like CNN and right‑wing outlets like Fox News with “fake news,” with conservatives more likely to label mainstream media as fake news, a perception linked to lower media trust, support for Trump, and higher belief in conspiracy theories.

Abstract

Although the rise of fake news is posing an increasing threat to societies worldwide, little is known about what associations the term ‘fake news’ activates in the public mind. Here, we report a psychological bias that we describe as the ‘fake news effect’: the tendency for partisans to use the term ‘fake news’ to discount and discredit ideologically uncongenial media sources. In a national sample of the US population ( N = 1000), we elicited top-of-mind associations with the term ‘fake news’. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find evidence that both liberals and conservatives freely associate traditionally left-wing (e.g. CNN) and right-wing (e.g. Fox News) media sources with the term fake news. Moreover, conservatives are especially likely to associate the mainstream media with the term fake news and these perceptions are generally linked to lower trust in media, voting for Trump, and higher belief in conspiracy theories.