Detecting Fake News: The Effect of Political Ideology

Abstract

The increasing popularity of the term "fake news" has made it the subject of academic research in recent years. Scholars have studied people's ability to discern false content from accurate news, the way false news spreads, the effect of confirmation bias, and the impact of fake news on US democratic processes. Our statistical results suggest that, when controlling for age and other factors, (i) individuals can better discriminate false from true news the further the news is from their beliefs, thus stressing the importance of perspective; and (ii) the political leanings of individuals influence their ability to differentiate fake from true news, with conservatives being less accurate than their liberal counterparts at separating false news from real stories.

Keywords: fake news, misinformation, political ideology