The Relationship Between Social Media Use and Beliefs in Conspiracy Theories and Misinformation

Abstract

Numerous studies find associations between social media use and beliefs in conspiracy theories and misinformation. While such findings are often interpreted as evidence that social media causally promotes conspiracy beliefs, we theorize that this relationship is conditional on other individual-level predispositions. Across two studies, we examine the relationship between beliefs in conspiracy theories and media use, finding that individuals who get their news from social media and use social media frequently express more beliefs in some types of conspiracy theories and misinformation. However, we also find that these relationships are conditional on conspiracy thinking––the predisposition to interpret salient events as products of conspiracies––such that social media use becomes more strongly associated with conspiracy beliefs as conspiracy thinking intensifies. This pattern, which we observe across many beliefs from two studies, clarifies the relationship between social media use and beliefs in dubious ideas. Supplementary Information The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s11109-021-09734-6.

Who Believes in Conspiracy Theories about the COVID-19 Pandemic in Romania? An Analysis of Conspiracy Theories Believers’ Profiles

“…This phenomenon is also replicated in case of the current COVID-19 pandemic, where most of the conspiracy theories were first generated and disseminated on social media [52,53]. There is also strong evidence that supports a correlation between social media use and beliefs in conspiracy theories [23,51,54], and more specifically, between social media use and beliefs in vaccine and vaccination-related conspiracy theories [34]. A large amount of research [27,30,55] has already demonstrated that shows people who use social media as news or information sources are more prone to believe in COVID-19-related conspiracy theories, including vaccine and vaccination-related conspiracy theories.…”

“…Additionally, within their social media networks, individuals tend to consume and disseminate ideas and information with which they already agree, without or barely taking into consideration alternative opinions [48,49]. As many scholars have already pointed out, social media plays an essential role in the dissemination of conspiracy theories [50,51]. This phenomenon is also replicated in case of the current COVID-19 pandemic, where most of the conspiracy theories were first generated and disseminated on social media [52,53].…”

The conspiracy of Covid-19 and 5G: Spatial analysis fallacies in the age of data democratization

“…This false positive error, combined with confirmation bias and hindsight bias, allow for conspiracy theorists to assert an existing pattern - in this case, mobile electromagnetic frequencies - and reassign its sinister effect from surveillance to the spread of COVID-19. However, Enders et al (2021) found that the impact of social media on such is a form of biased assimilation. Conjunction fallacies are errors of probabilistic reasoning where people overdetermine the prospect of co-occurring phenomenon ( Enders and Smallpage, 2019 ).…”

“…An Oxford Survey found that 40% of respondents believed “to some extent the spread of the virus is a deliberate attempt by powerful people to gain control” ( OCEANS, 2020 ) and only 64% are sure they will take the vaccine ( Sherman et al, 2020 ). An American study, by contrast, found that only 11% of respondents agreed 5G and COVID were correlated ( Enders et al, 2021 , p. np). The 5G-COVID-19 conspiracy theory arrives in a context of growing scepticism over public health institutions and measures.…”

Studying and Challenging Racism in Higher Education: Naming Bad Faith to Understand the “Logic” of Racism

“…Although out of scope for the present paper, it is worth noting that useful work has examined the role of social networks and the proliferation of misinformation and conspiracy theories online [3][4][5]. Such literature examines the processes of how hateful or false information is spread.…”