New in Scientific American w Jenny Allen: Is misinformation *really* a problem? Our take= Exposure to "fake news" is rare, but misinformedness is common- b/c of misleading claims from elites & mainstream news. Solutions must take this into account! www.scientificamerican.com/article/comb...
“Fake news”-style misinformation is only a fraction of what deceives voters. Fighting misinformation will require holding political elites and mainstream media accountable
One issue I've consistently run into is how to operationalize "misleading" information. Broadly, there seems to be an important category of messages which are a) not false but also b) liable to induce untrue beliefs in readers. The question is how such messages can empirically identified.
Exactly. To understand the challenge of pervasiveness “misinformedness” we need to understand the role of elites… as well as the role of social reinforcement (the two step model) AND how modern participatory info systems feed and shape elite speech.
I will have to read this in my office where I think I can get access to it tomorrow. Looking forward to it. At the moment, I am trying to reconcile your claim that exposure to false info is rare with the observation that fairly large numbers of people believe disinfo campaigns.