Cass R. Sunstein’s summary of a recent study of political
belief formation is worth a read. The
study was conducted by Brendan Nyhan of Dartmouth College. Here is Sunstein’s summary and his interesting
commentary, with my comments at the end.
The study’s big
question: Would the correction have any effect? Would people who saw the
correction be less likely to believe that the Affordable Care Act calls for
death panels?
Not
surprisingly, the correction was more likely to convince people who viewed
Palin unfavorably than those who had a high opinion of her. Notably, the
correction also tended to sway the participants who liked Palin but who didn’t
have a lot of political knowledge (as measured by their answers to general
questions, such as how many terms a president may serve).
Here’s the most interesting finding in the study. Those who
viewed Palin favorably, and who also had a lot of political knowledge, were not
persuaded by the correction. On the contrary, it made them more likely to
believe Palin was right.
This finding
presents an intriguing puzzle. While the correction tended to convince Palin
supporters who lacked political knowledge that she was wrong about death
panels, it generally failed to persuade Palin supporters who had such
knowledge. For those supporters, the correction actually backfired. How come?
There are two explanations, and they tell
us a lot about current political controversies — and about why the U.S. and
other nations remain so badly polarized. The first is that if you know a lot
about politics, you are more likely to be emotionally invested in what you
believe. Efforts to undermine or dislodge those beliefs might well upset you
and therefore backfire. The second explanation is that if you have a lot of
political knowledge, you are more likely to think you know what is really true,
and it will be pretty hard for people to convince you otherwise.
The general lesson is both straightforward and disturbing. People who know
a lot, and who trust a particular messenger, might well be impervious to
factual corrections, even if what they believe turns out to be false.
It is important
to distinguish between two kinds of political “validators”: the expected and
the surprising. For informed listeners, certain messengers will be hopelessly
ineffective and maybe even counterproductive, not because of what they say, but
because of who they are. When Democrat Nancy Pelosi, the House minority leader,
argues that climate change is a serious problem, or when Republican John
Boehner, the House speaker, contends that increases in the minimum wage will
reduce employment, their messages are expected and to that extent
uninformative. Skeptics are more likely to yawn than to shift their own views.
But some
political validators are surprising. If Boehner suddenly announced that climate
change is an urgent problem that needed to be addressed, or if former Secretary
of State Hillary Clinton proclaimed that increases in the minimum wage are a
terrible idea because they would reduce employment, skeptics might well stop and
notice, even if they are well-informed.
Consider
Republican Sen. Rob Portman’s recent expression of support for same-sex
marriage. That statement was newsworthy, and may have moved people, precisely
because he was a Republican. (It is interesting to wonder whether the message
was strengthened or weakened by the knowledge that Portman’s son is gay.)
There is a clear implication here for those who provide
information. Balanced presentations may divide people even more sharply
than before, and factual corrections may backfire. When people begin with clear
convictions, efforts to correct their errors may have the perverse effect of
entrenching them — at least if the messengers aren’t seen as credible.
The most important lesson may be for those who receive
political information. Sure, it is important to consider the source, but the
content matters, as well. Our favorite messengers are sometimes wrong and our
least favorite messengers are sometimes right. It’s sometimes worthwhile to pay
a lot more attention to what is being said, and a lot less to the identity of
the person who is saying it.
Interesting, right? It occurred to me that there is also a third
possible explanation, which then suggests additional lessons as well.
Few of us reject the idea that
corporations are powerful political actors; recognizing, for instance, in the
recent gun control debate that their influence overcame a position that 90% of
Americans support. Similarly, few of us
reject the notion that the mass media is a powerful tool for driving public
opinion. With that in mind, I suggest
one step further to consider a third explanation for the data Sunstein
provides: Fox News.
Of course, Fox News is just the
vanguard, but it serves as an accurate condensation symbol for my third
explanation. In short, with Fox News at the
forefront, we have been witnesses a concerted assault on public opinion for
decades through the formation of an alternative information production system
designed to ‘inform’ people with information packaged in ways that lead them to
business-friendly, often erroneous, conclusions.
Thus, we have a population who are
attentive to the news, as a good citizen should be, but the more news they
consume the less informed they are, even though they do know more ‘facts’ (so
they register as more ‘informed’) and these facts are organized into coherent,
if misleading, stories that make death panels or the litigation explosion ‘obviously
true’ and thus resistant to new facts or argumentation.
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