Fact-Checking: A Meta-Analysis of What Works and for Whom

Walter, Nathan; Cohen, Jonathan; Holbert, R. Lance; Morag, Yasmin

doi:10.1080/10584609.2019.1668894

Cited by 409 publications

(276 citation statements)

References 74 publications

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“…However, this finding appears to have been anomalous (Nyhan forthcoming). Meta-analyses of the related literatures on corrective information and fact-checking find that they do generally increase the accuracy of people's beliefs and reduce belief in misperceptions, though these interventions do not fully offset the effect of exposure to misinformation and their effects may be reduced in conflictual political settings (Chan et al 2017;Walter and Murphy 2018;Walter et al 2019).…”

Section: Reducing Misperceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facts and Myths about Misperceptions

Nyhan

2020

Journal of Economic Perspectives

150

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Misperceptions threaten to warp mass opinion and public policy on controversial issues in politics, science, and health. What explains the prevalence and persistence of these false and unsupported beliefs, which seem to be genuinely held by many people? Though limits on cognitive resources and attention play an important role, many of the most destructive misperceptions arise in domains where individuals have weak incentives to hold accurate beliefs and strong directional motivations to endorse beliefs that are consistent with a group identity such as partisanship. These tendencies are often exploited by elites who frequently create and amplify misperceptions to influence elections and public policy. Though evidence is lacking for claims of a “post-truth” era, changes in the speed with which false information travels and the extent to which it can find receptive audiences require new approaches to counter misinformation. Reducing the propagation and influence of false claims will require further efforts to inoculate people in advance of exposure (for example, media literacy), debunk false claims that are already salient or widespread (for example, fact-checking), reduce the prevalence of low-quality information (for example, changing social media algorithms), and discourage elites from promoting false information (for example, strengthening reputational sanctions).

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Section: Reducing Misperceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Facts and Myths about Misperceptions

Nyhan

2020

Journal of Economic Perspectives

150

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“…Por otro lado, Walter et al (2019) condujeron un análisis sobre la eficacia del periodismo de verificación para corregir la desinformación sobre política con base en investigaciones académicas previas concluyendo que, si bien existe, es muy limitado. El análisis conjunto estableció que los efectos del fact-checking son más fuertes si rebaten la ideología adversa que si desacreditan la ideología afín.…”

Section: Retos Y Dilemasunclassified

“…La amplia variedad de estos calificativos en medios como Chequeado o La Silla Vacía establece una escala compleja en términos cognitivos para los usuarios y fácilmente porosa e intercambiable para los propios periodistas. Además, la eficacia del fact-checking es mayor cuando refuta la totalidad del contenido que cuando refuta aspectos parciales (Walter et al, 2019).…”

Section: Conclusiónunclassified

Una reflexión sobre la epistemología del fact-checking journalism: retos y dilemas

Perez

2020

RCom

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El periodismo de verificación o fact-checking journalism ha experimentado un auge en todo el mundo y mayor incidencia en el debate público. Este artículo plantea una reflexión sobre el periodismo de verificación centrada en los retos y dilemas epistemológicos que habiliten cumplir el triple objetivo de este nuevo género periodístico: velar por la veracidad de la información difundida en redes y plataformas sociales, realizar un escrutinio al poder y transformar la información en conocimiento asumible por los ciudadanos. Mediante el análisis de la metodología de medios de verificación iberoamericanos de habla hispana se exponen varias cuestiones ligadas con el proceso de verificación, de difusión y de recepción. Igualmente se analiza el rol del ciudadano en el proceso de verificación y se analiza la disonancia de datos en los dos principales listados de verificación (International Fact-Checking Network y el Duke Reporter’s Lab).

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“…Wood & Porter, 2019); however, many such interventions focus on correcting factual beliefs about the world/public policy (e.g., beliefs about crime statistics) rather than inaccurate meta-cognitive beliefs. Evidence that correcting such factual beliefs reduces actual polarization is weak, because fact-checking is less effective when the corrective information is directly counter-attitudinal (i.e., debunking personal ideology) relative to when it is unrelated to ideology (Walter et al, 2020). By contrast, addressing first-order misperceptions regarding polarization appears to be promising.…”

Section: How Inaccuracy In First Vs Second-order Beliefs Lead To Actmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…More broadly, we encourage polarization scholars to consider inaccurate meta-cognitive beliefs more centrality in their models of polarization, a call others have recently made as well (e.g., . Perhaps understandably, existing work on inaccurate political beliefs tends to focus on inaccurate factual beliefs (e.g., is climate change real, was Barack Obama born in the United States), yet interventions attempting to update such inaccurate beliefs tend to have small effects on judgment accuracy and struggle to overcome entrenched beliefs (see meta-analysis in Walter et al, 2020). While there is still much research to be done, recent work suggests corrective interventions targeting inaccurate meta-cognitive beliefs are quite effective at reducing negative intergroup outcomes (Dorison et al, 2019;Kteily et al, 2016;Lees & Cikara, 2020).…”

Section: Focus On Correcting Inaccurate Meta-perceptionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding and Combating Misperceived Polarization

Lees¹,

Cikara²

2020

Preprint

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By many accounts politics is becoming more polarized, yielding dire consequences for democracy and trust in government. Yet a growing body of research on “false polarization” finds that perceptions of “what the other side believes” are inaccurate–specifically, overly pessimistic–and that these inaccuracies exacerbate intergroup conflict. Through a review of existing work and a reanalysis of published data, we (i) develop a typology of the disparate phenomena that are labeled “polarization,” (ii) use that typology to understand when polarization is “false,” and (iii) identify when false polarization gives rise to true polarization (e.g., extreme issue attitudes and prejudice). We further suggest that a specific psychological domain is ideal for developing corrective interventions: meta-perception, one’s judgment of how they are perceived by others. We review evidence indicating that correcting meta-perception inaccuracies is effective at reducing intergroup conflict, and discuss methods for precisely measuring meta-perception accuracy. We argue that the reputational nature of meta-perception provides a motivational mechanism by which individuals are sensitive to the truth, even when those truths pertain to the “other side.” We conclude by discussing how these insights can be integrated into existing research across multiple disciplines seeking to understand polarization and its negative consequences.

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Fact-Checking: A Meta-Analysis of What Works and for Whom

Cited by 409 publications

References 74 publications

Facts and Myths about Misperceptions

Facts and Myths about Misperceptions

Una reflexión sobre la epistemología del fact-checking journalism: retos y dilemas

Understanding and Combating Misperceived Polarization

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