Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Edited by Dietram A. Scheufele, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, and accepted by Editorial Board Member May R. Berenbaum October 4, 2018
(received for review April 27, 2018)
Within the scientific community, much attention has focused on The Road to Infowars
improving communications between scientists, policy makers, and Through the 1970s, Americans got their information from a
the public. To date, efforts have centered on improving the rather small number of sources, really only a handful of news-
content, accessibility, and delivery of scientific communications. papers, magazines, and television broadcasts. Although some
Here we argue that in the current political and media environment 1,745 daily newspapers boasted a cumulative circulation of
faulty communication is no longer the core of the problem. Distrust around 62 million readers in that year (4), actual coverage was
in the scientific enterprise and misperceptions of scientific knowl- dominated by two wire services (the Associated Press and United
edge increasingly stem less from problems of communication and Press International) along with a few prominent newspapers that
more from the widespread dissemination of misleading and biased were nationally syndicated (the New York Times, the Washington
information. We describe the profound structural shifts in the Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the Los Angeles Times). At the
media environment that have occurred in recent decades and their same time, weekly digests of national and international news
connection to public policy decisions and technological changes. were published by only three magazines: Time, Newsweek, and
We explain how these shifts have enabled unscrupulous actors US News and World Report.
with ulterior motives increasingly to circulate fake news, misin- Broadcast news at the time was dominated by three corporate
formation, and disinformation with the help of trolls, bots, and television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC), a dominance that
respondent-driven algorithms. We document the high degree of was only beginning to be challenged by public networks. NPR
partisan animosity, implicit ideological bias, political polarization, began transmitting in 1971, and PBS went on the air in 1975. In
and politically motivated reasoning that now prevail in the public addition to the small number of sources, broadcast news was
sphere and offer an actual example of how clearly stated scientific regulated by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC),
conclusions can be systematically perverted in the media through which required broadcasters to reserve a small share of airtime
an internet-based campaign of disinformation and misinforma- to cover matters of public interest; under the FCC’s “fairness
tion. We suggest that, in addition to attending to the clarity of doctrine” they had to do so in a manner that was honest, equi-
their communications, scientists must also develop online strate- table, and balanced. Consequently, the major broadcasters all
gies to counteract campaigns of misinformation and disinforma-
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that the media and political environments of the United States Published under the PNAS license.
have changed very dramatically over the past three decades in 1
To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: dmassey@princeton.edu.
ways that impede effective communication. Published online November 26, 2018.
SOCIAL SCIENCES
mostly or all false; the figure for CNN is 27% (https://www.politifact. ulation. According to Tim Phillips, president of the organization,
com/punditfact/), still rather high for a national news organization. “most of these candidates have figured out that the science has
Among Aelieve’s top 10 liberal websites, most belong to become political . . . . What it means for candidates on the Re-
mainstream outlets that predate the internet era such as the New publican side is if you . . . buy into green energy . . . you do so at
York Times, ABC, the Washington Post, Time, and Rolling Stone. your political peril. The vast majority of people who are involved
Among liberal websites, the oldest is Slate (1996), followed by in the [Republican] nominating process—the conventions and
the Daily Kos (2002), the Huffington Post (2005), and Politco the primaries—are suspect of the science. And that’s our influ-
(2007). Among the top 10 conservative websites, in contrast, only ence. Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it” (15).
two are mainstream outlets that predate the internet (the Tele- Although public confidence in science remains relatively high
in general, it is not trusted equally by all citizens. Whereas 72%
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Iyengar and Massey PNAS | April 16, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 16 | 7657
race, religion, gender, and other significant social cleavages (21). Potential Explanations for Increased Polarization. The phenomenon
While the percentage of partisans who evaluate the other party of affective party polarization has intensified over the past three
negatively has increased steadily since the 1980s, the share of decades (27) for a number of reasons. First, the correspondence
partisans expressing intense negativity (rated on a 0–100 scale) between party divisions and major socioeconomic divides has
for their other-party opponents remained quite small until 2000. sharpened. Democrats are the party of the poor, city dwellers,
Post-2000, the size of this group has increased dramatically, from women, nonwhites, and secularists. Republicans, in contrast,
8% in the ANES 2000 study to 21% in 2016. Thus, the first two represent white males, rural areas, evangelicals, and the well off.
decades of the 21st century represent an acute era of polariza- The confluence of party affiliation and other group attachments
tion in which partisans’ mild dislike for their opponents has been has, of course, strengthened the sense of “us versus them.” (The
transformed into a deeper form of animus. intensification of partisan affect, of course, does not apply to the
In the United States, partisanship is a particularly salient as- segment of the electorate that does not identify with a party.
pect of people’s sense of personal identify for several reasons. However, these “pure” independents who lack any attachment to
First, it is acquired at a young age and rarely changes over the either of the two major parties made up only 13% of the elec-
life cycle, notwithstanding significant shifts in personal circum- torate in the 2016 ANES.)
stances (22). Second, political campaigns—the formal occasions Second, the digital revolution has brought about profound
for expressing one’s partisan identity—recur frequently and last changes in the media market. Today, partisans have ample op-
for many months (or even years) in the contemporary United portunity to seek out information from providers whose per-
States, meaning that individuals constantly receive partisan spective on events aligns with their own. As already noted, the
messages and cues. It is no surprise, therefore, that ordinary US media market today includes dozens of news sources that
Americans see the world through a partisan prism. provide explicitly partisan coverage of issues and events and
Polarization has strengthened to the point that party identity is whose content is not subject to conventional journalistic or edi-
now a litmus test for personal character. People prefer to asso- torial gatekeeping. Although the most inflammatory partisan
ciate with fellow partisans and are less trusting of partisan op- sites attract only a miniscule share of the market (limited to
ponents (21). The most vivid evidence of increased social strong partisans), the emergence of massive online social net-
distance across the party divide concerns attitudes toward in- works through Facebook and Twitter make it possible for reports
terparty marriage. In the early 1960s, the percentage of partisans from these sites to recirculate through a much larger secondary
concerned over the prospect of their son or daughter marrying audience. In this way, they reach relatively “unmotivated” indi-
someone from the opposition party was in the single digits, viduals with weak partisan motives. Millions of Americans en-
countered false reports about the 2016 election on Facebook and
but 45 y later it had risen to more than a third of all partisans
Twitter, and, given the political naiveté of the electorate, many
(20). Data from online dating sites and national voter files
likely believed in their accuracy [although the available evidence
confirm that partisanship is a key trait underlying the selec-
indicates that the level of exposure was insufficient to have had
tion of long-term partners (23). At the same time, residential
an impact on the election (28)].
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SOCIAL SCIENCES
Bush Administration had justified the invasion on the grounds that nomic effects of immigration. Whereas 88% of liberal Demo-
the regime of Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass de- crats and 79% of moderate Democrats agree that immigrants
struction. Once the Hussein regime fell, it became clear—and was mostly take jobs that US citizens do not want, the share was only
widely reported in the media—that the invading forces had failed 62% for moderate Republicans and 55% for conservative Re-
to find any trace of chemical or biological weapons. Nonetheless, publicans (46). In an effort to bring the results of social scientific
large numbers of Republicans continued to believe that the research to bear on this issue, the National Academy of Sciences
United States had, in fact, found the weapons in question (40). (NAS) published a report commissioned by its Committee on
Misinformation about Iraq stemmed not only from motivated National Statistics entitled The Economic and Fiscal Conse-
reasoning (the unwillingness to accept that the Bush Adminis- quences of Immigration (49). Its reception in the public sphere
tration had waged a war based on faulty intelligence) but also provides a vivid illustration of the difficulty of communicating
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from the availability of news and commentary that propagated science in today’s polarized media environment.
news coverage with a partisan slant. Viewers of Fox News, for Like many NAS reports on topics of public interest, its pub-
instance, were especially likely to express false beliefs about the lication was inaugurated with a press release with a reporting
war in Iraq (40). embargo of September 22 at 1 PM (50). The release summarized
Partisans’ commitment to misleading or false claims from their the report’s findings, accurately stating that “the impact of im-
side is illustrated starkly by the case of President Trump. Before migration on the wages of native-born workers overall is very
he ran for president, he organized the movement questioning small;” that “there is little evidence that immigration signifi-
former President Obama’s citizenship and religion. As president cantly affects the overall employment levels of native-born
he has made a number of misleading or false statements. He workers;” that “immigration has an overall positive impact on
incorrectly claimed that the crowds at his inauguration were long-run economic growth in the US;” and that although “first-
larger than those at the Obama inaugurations. He further generation immigrants are more costly to governments” as
claimed, without providing evidence, that millions of illegal im- adults, the children of immigrants . . . are among the strongest
migrants had voted in the 2016 election and that the Obama economic and fiscal contributors in the US population.”
Administration had ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower. Survey These conclusions were duly reflected in the mainstream
data indicate that Republicans believe these claims. press, with headlines in the New York Times such as “Immigrants
In a 2015 CNN poll, in response to the question “Do you happen Aren’t Taking Americans’ Jobs, New Study Finds” (51) and
to know what religion Barack Obama is?” 43% of Republicans “Immigration Does More Good than Harm to Economy, Study
answered “Muslim” compared with only 15% of Democrats (41). Finds” in the Wall Street Journal (52). However, unbeknownst to
This partisan divide in misinformation is magnified when we con- the report’s authors, it had already been surreptitiously leaked to
sider Trump’s claims concerning his inauguration. In a 2017 survey, Breitbart News, and this accurate and balanced reportage was
respondents were shown aerial photographs of the crowds at the quickly buried in an avalanche of fake news, misinformation, and
Trump and 2008 Obama inaugurations and were asked to disinformation emanating from the right-wing media networks.
match each image with the corresponding inauguration. More Breitbart News led the way, with an online headline stating that
than 40% of Trump supporters matched the image showing the “National Academies’ Study Shows $500 Billion Immigration
larger 2008 crowd with the Trump inauguration, while less than Tax on Working Americans” (53).
10% of Clinton supporters made this error (42). The substantial The Center for Immigration Studies (which despite its ano-
partisan gap in erroneous beliefs suggests that partisans are dyne name advocates restrictive immigration policies) went for-
willing to accept dubious claims made by their leaders. Even ward with the headline “National Academy of Sciences Study of
more ominously, in experimental settings misperceptions are Immigration: Workers and Taxpayers Lose, Businesses Benefit”
found to persist despite exposure to credible information re- (54). The conservative Heritage Foundation proclaimed “Na-
butting the claims in question (43). tional Academy of Sciences Report Indicates Amnesty for Un-
lawful Immigrants Would Cost Trillions of Dollars” (55), and the
Science vs. Motivated Reasoning: The Case of Immigration same headline appeared in the Daily Signal (56). Infowars, for its
In recent years, immigration has become a very divisive, polar- part, proclaimed that the “Report Explains Financial Cost of
izing, and increasingly partisan issue, the subject of a bitter Illegal Immigrants for American Taxpayers” (57).
Iyengar and Massey PNAS | April 16, 2019 | vol. 116 | no. 16 | 7659
Eventually Donald Trump entered the fray, claiming in his to penetrate the cognitive structures of those it threatens and
2017 State of the Union Message that “according to the National therefore is likely to be either rejected or ignored by otherwise
Academy of Sciences our current immigration system costs open-minded people who have absorbed the campaign of false
America’s taxpayers many billions of dollars a year,” for which and misleading information.
the Washington Post awarded him three Pinocchios, noting that Although the public is beginning to awaken to the dangers of
“it’s easy to cherry pick numbers to make a particular point. But, today’s frenzied media landscape and the scions of Silicone
alas, Trump took one line out of a 500-page report, and totally Valley have offered some mea culpas, the way forward remains
skewed the intricate findings” (58). Given research showing how unclear. Nebulous proposals for government regulation are be-
erroneous beliefs stubbornly persist despite exposure to credible ing bandied about, and the purveyors of social media are talking
rebuttals, it is unlikely that many people in the president’s base about how better to police themselves and their platforms. Re-
absorbed the report’s actual findings; instead, most probably forms will be difficult to implement, however, given the size,
retained the misinformation spread through the conservative diversity, and pace of change in the media environment. As long
blogosphere (59). as serial click-throughs and high audience ratings continue to
generate bountiful profits from microprofiling and advertising,
Communicating Science Today and as long as billionaires are willing and able to spend large
In the decades since 1970, the nation has witnessed profound sums of money to protect their political and economic interests
structural changes in the media environment resulting from online, media owners and managers have little incentive to
broadcast deregulation, the repeal of the Fairness Doctrine, change their algorithms or programming content.
the rise of cable television, the advent of the internet, and At this point, probably the best that can be done is for sci-
the expansion of social media. These changes have, in turn, entists and their scientific associations to anticipate campaigns of
contributed to greater political polarization, partisan homo- misinformation and disinformation and to proactively develop
phily, ideological homogamy, class segmentation, and politi- online strategies and internet platforms to counteract them when
cal segregation within the social sphere and to ever-increasing they occur. For example, the National Academies of Science,
partisan animosity and motivated partisan reasoning in the Engineering, and Medicine could form a consortium of pro-
psychological realm. fessional scientific organizations to fund the creation of a media
As a result, whenever scientific findings clash with a person and internet operation that monitors networks, channels, and
or group’s political agenda, be it conservative (as with climate web platforms known to spread false and misleading scientific
science and immigration) or liberal (as with genetically mod- information so as to be able to respond quickly with a counter-
ified foods and vaccination risks), scientists can expect to en- vailing campaign of rebuttal based on accurate information
counter a targeted campaign of fake news, misinformation, and through Facebook, Twitter, and other forms of social media. Of
disinformation in response, no matter how clearly the infor- course, this is much easier said than done, and—given what re-
mation is presented or how carefully and convincingly it is search tells us about how the tribalization of US society has
framed. Under these circumstances, the information is unlikely closed American minds—it might not be very effective.
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