Department of Computer and Information Science, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104;
The Annenberg School of Communication, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA 19104.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2021 Apr 13;118(15). doi: 10.1073/pnas.1912443118.
Since the 2016 US presidential election, the deliberate spread of misinformation online, and on social media in particular, has generated extraordinary concern, in large part because of its potential effects on public opinion, political polarization, and ultimately democratic decision making. Recently, however, a handful of papers have argued that both the prevalence and consumption of "fake news" per se is extremely low compared with other types of news and news-relevant content. Although neither prevalence nor consumption is a direct measure of influence, this work suggests that proper understanding of misinformation and its effects requires a much broader view of the problem, encompassing biased and misleading-but not necessarily factually incorrect-information that is routinely produced or amplified by mainstream news organizations. In this paper, we propose an ambitious collective research agenda to measure the origins, nature, and prevalence of misinformation, broadly construed, as well as its impact on democracy. We also sketch out some illustrative examples of completed, ongoing, or planned research projects that contribute to this agenda.
自 2016 年美国总统大选以来，蓄意在网上、尤其是在社交媒体上传播虚假信息引起了极大关注，主要原因是其可能对公众舆论、政治两极分化以及最终的民主决策产生影响。然而，最近有少数几篇论文认为，与其他类型的新闻和新闻相关内容相比，“假新闻”本身的流行程度和消费程度都极低。尽管流行程度和消费程度都不是影响力的直接衡量标准，但这项工作表明，要正确理解虚假信息及其影响，需要更广泛地看待这个问题，包括主流新闻机构经常制作或放大的带有偏见和误导性但不一定是事实错误的信息。在本文中，我们提出了一个雄心勃勃的集体研究议程，以衡量广泛意义上的虚假信息的起源、性质和流行程度，以及其对民主的影响。我们还勾勒了一些已完成、正在进行或计划进行的研究项目的示例，这些项目有助于实现这一议程。
