Measuring the news and its impact on democracy
Measuring the news and its impact on democracy
复制标题
衡量新闻及其对民主的影响
DOI：
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发表时间：
2021
影响因子：
11.1
通讯作者：
M. Mobius
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
D. Watts;David M. Rothschild;M. Mobius
自2016年美国总统大选以来，在网上，特别是在社交媒体上故意传播错误信息引起了极大的关注，这在很大程度上是因为它可能对公众舆论、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量都极低。虽然流行度和消费都不是影响的直接衡量标准，但这项工作表明，正确理解错误信息及其影响需要更广泛的视角，包括主流新闻机构常规生产或放大的有偏见和误导性（但不一定是事实不正确）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，以衡量广泛解释的错误信息的起源、性质和流行程度，以及它对民主的影响。我们还概述了一些有助于本议程的已完成的、正在进行的或计划中的研究项目的说明性示例。
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.