Is Journalistic Truth Dead? Measuring How Informed Voters Are about Political News†

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Angelucci, Charles; Prat, Andrea
• 署名单位: Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT); Columbia University
• 刊物名称: AMERICAN ECONOMIC REVIEW
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0002-8282
• DOI: 10.1257/aer.20211003
• 发表日期: 2024
• 页码: 887-925
• 关键词: partisan bias; false news; media; KNOWLEDGE; preferences; INFORMATION; persuasion; responses; online; IMPACT

摘要

To investigate general patterns in news information in the United States, we combine a protocol for identifying major political news stories, 11 monthly surveys with 15,000 participants, and a model of news discernment. When confronted with a true and a fake news story, 47 percent of subjects confidently choose the true story, 3 percent confidently choose the fake story, and the remaining half are uncertain. Socioeconomic differences are associated with large variations in the probability of selecting the true news story. Partisan congruence between an individual and a news story matters, but its impact is up to an order of magnitude smaller. (JEL D72, D83, L82)