RAPID: Rumors, Truths, and Reality: A Study of Political Misinformation

长期以来，谣言和影射一直影响着政治行为。然而，随着24小时新闻周期的兴起和专业信息通过互联网的快速传播，通过谣言传播虚假信息的可能性可能比历史上任何时候都要大。该项目对不同策略对抗政治谣言的有效性进行了实验研究。谣言是一种特殊的错误信息--人们强烈相信事实不正确的信息。通过研究民主公民的这一基本问题，即误导公民的持久障碍，该项目将在重要方面推动对大众政治行为的研究。该项目借鉴了社会心理学的研究成果，该工作发现，信息处理的困难影响了个人对其准确性的评估。这项研究表明，人们使用他们的元认知经验--回忆或处理新信息的容易程度--作为有关该信息真实性的信号。重复的具体陈述越多，它们就变得越“不稳定”，结果是，人们越有可能相信它们是真的。因此，向公民直面事实并不一定能纠正公众持有的误解。毕竟，反驳谣言需要重复最初的谣言，从而增加其流畅性。这一提议的智力价值在于测试基于理论的策略，以对抗政治谣言。这项研究探讨了不同的表现性策略在纠正普遍持有的政治标签方面的有效性。首先，这将有助于将学者的注意力集中在政治谣言上。政治学家在这一领域做的学术工作很少。其次，它可能会为政策制定者提供重要工具，用来抵消政治谣言。

Rumors and innuendo have long influenced the conduct of politics. With the rise of the 24-hour news cycle and the rapid communication of specialized information via the internet, however, the potential for the spread of false information through rumors is perhaps greater than at any time in history. This project provides an experimental investigation of the effectiveness of different strategies to counter political rumors. Rumors are a special kind of misinformation - strongly held beliefs in information that is factually incorrect. By examining this fundamental problem of democratic citizenship, namely the enduring obstacle of a misinformed citizenry, this project will advance the study of mass political behavior in important ways.This project draws upon work in social psychology which finds that the difficulty with which information is processed affect individuals' assessment of its accuracy. This research shows that people use their metacognitive experience - how easy it is to recall or process new information - as a signal concerning the veracity of that information. The more particular statements are repeated, the more "fluid" they become, and - as a result - the more likely people are to believe they are true. Thus, confronting citizens with facts will not necessarily correct publicly held misperceptions. Countering the rumors, after all, involves repeating the initial rumor, thereby increasing its fluency.The intellectual merit of this proposal is testing theoretically based strategies to counteract political rumors. The study explores the effectiveness of different presentational strategies in correcting popularly held political faslehoods.The broader impacts of this proposal are two fold. First, it will help to focus scholars attention on political rumors. Little scholarly work has been done in this area by political scientists. Second, it may provide policymakers with important tools to use to counteract political rumors.