Qui Prodest? Persuasion and Mobilization Effects of Politically Biased Fake News in Social Media

The dramatic changes in the media landscape in the last years have led to a challenge never experienced before to this extent: the misinformation phenomenon, largely supported by the social online platforms. Nowadays both the academic literature and the public discourse use terms such as „fake news”, „post-truth era”, „filter bubble”, etc., in an attempt to understand the potential effects of online misinformation. However, little is still known about fake news effects on persuasion and mobilization, and even less about the possible moderators of such effects. In this study, we address the effects of one particular type of fake news (politically manipulated news) on issue agreement (persuasion effect) and collective action (mobilization effect), with a focus on political leaning and level of education as potential moderators. In today’s social media environment, people are arguably mostly exposed to information that confirms their attitudes on various topics, including political preferences. The “echo-chambers” formed by people’s individual micro public spheres favor the confirmation bias phenomenon: people actively seek information to confirm their preexisting attitudes, thus reinforcing their political preferences and disregarding potential cognitive dissonance associated with divergent views or opinions. This is the reason why people rarely question the accuracy of information congruent with their convictions, being exposed to persuasion and mobilizing effects. By means of a 2x2 experiment (N=1000) framing news on economic data as either a success of the current establishment or a failure, providing either pro (or against) arguments, as opposed to pro and against arguments, we investigate to what extent people are inclined to accept or support information that is ideologically comfortable (confirmation bias), and whether the level of support is also influenced by the type of arguments provided in the news. We expect both variables to be moderated by the level of education and political leaning. We expect that more educated people to be less prone to the confirmation bias effects, and more sensitive to pro and against arguments. At the same time, we expect people to be more easily influenced by news convergent with their pre-existing attitudes, and more eager to engage in social action when being exposed to divergent information.