School of Communication, Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2019 Mar 27;14(3):e0213500. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0213500. eCollection 2019.
There is considerable concern about the role that social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, play in promoting misperceptions during political campaigns. These technologies are widely used, and inaccurate information flowing across them has a high profile. This research uses three-wave panel surveys conducted with representative samples of Americans during both the 2012 and 2016 U.S. Presidential elections to assess whether use of social media for political information promoted endorsement of falsehoods about major party candidates or important campaign issues. Fixed effects regression helps ensure that observed effects are not due to individual differences. Results indicate that social media use had a small but significant influence on misperceptions about President Obama in the 2012 election, and that this effect was most pronounced among strong partisans. Social media had no effect on belief accuracy about the Republican candidate in that election. The 2016 survey focused on campaign issues. There is no evidence that social media use influenced belief accuracy about these topics in aggregate, but Facebook users were unique. Social media use by this group reduced issue misperceptions relative to those who only used other social media. These results demonstrate that social media can alter citizens' willingness to endorse falsehoods during an election, but that the effects are often small.
人们非常关注社交媒体（如 Facebook 和 Twitter）在政治竞选期间传播误解所扮演的角色。这些技术被广泛使用，而在它们之间传播的不准确信息也备受关注。本研究使用了在 2012 年和 2016 年美国总统选举期间对具有代表性的美国人群体进行的三波面板调查，以评估社交媒体在政治信息方面的使用是否促进了对主要政党候选人或重要竞选问题的错误看法的认可。固定效应回归有助于确保观察到的影响不是由于个体差异造成的。结果表明，社交媒体的使用对 2012 年奥巴马总统选举中对总统的误解产生了微小但显著的影响，而这种影响在强烈的党派人士中最为明显。社交媒体对 2012 年选举中共和党候选人的信仰准确性没有影响。2016 年的调查侧重于竞选问题。没有证据表明社交媒体的使用会影响对这些话题的总体信仰准确性，但 Facebook 用户是个例外。与只使用其他社交媒体的用户相比，该群体使用社交媒体减少了对这些问题的误解。这些结果表明，社交媒体可以改变公民在选举期间认可虚假信息的意愿，但这种影响通常很小。
