Kim L. Nalder | Vox

Distrust of fact-checking is not restricted to the right

2017-07-03T11:30:05-04:00

What to do about the “post-truth” era in American politics? Many have hoped that beefed-up fact-checking by reputable nonpartisan organizations (e.g., Fact Checker , PolitiFact, FactCheck.org, Snopes) would equip citizens with a tool to help them identify lies, thereby reducing politicians’ incentive to do so.

Putting aside questions about the consistency of their methods, does fact-checking work? As mass polarization deepens and media sources continue to balkanize, citizens who see bias in the traditional purveyors of information (mainstream media, academia, etc.) may often dismiss fact-checkers as similarly biased. And even when fact-checking succeeds at correcting misperceptions, it may not reduce supporters’ embrace of the liar. Such behavior would be consistent with social psychologists’ understanding of motivated reasoning.

One might guess that such imperviousness to professional fact-checking would be more or less exclusive to Republicans. After all, their longstanding distrust of media and academia is well known. However, as was on full display in social media last year and at the Democratic National Convention, insurgent progressives may have little more faith in “the establishment” these days than do the most ardent Trumpists.

Rejection of fact-checking from either the right or left might be most pronounced when its conclusions shed positive light on the insurgents’ pet boogeymen (or women). Enter Hillary Rodham Clinton, that rarest of politicos who was, in May 2016 at least, the preferred target of both red and blue anti-establishment guerrillas.

Taking advantage of these circumstances, in May of last year, just a couple of weeks before the California Democratic primary, we administered a randomized experiment to a representative sample of Californians using Sacramento State University’s CALSPEAKS panel (n=622). After measuring party identification and primary vote intention, we prompted all respondents with the statement below:

“Nonpartisan fact-checking organizations like PolitiFact rate controversial candidate statements for truthfulness.”

We also exposed one randomized half of the sample to the following statement and image:

“Each presidential candidate’s current PolitiFact average truthfulness score is placed on the scale below.”

We created this visual by placing PolitiFact ratings as of May 2016 on a point scale and averaging them for each candidate. The image validated the growing mainstream narrative about Donald Trump’s disdain for facts, as well as Bernie Sanders’s tell-it-like-it-is reputation. But most notably, it contradicted conventional wisdom in many circles on both the left and right by indicating that Clinton’s statements had actually been more accurate, overall, than those of any other candidate running for president (though the difference between Clinton’s and Sanders’s ratings was not statistically significant).

We then asked all respondents to gauge 1) the extent to which they viewed Clinton, Sanders, and Trump as “honest,” and 2) the reliability of such fact-checkers. We wanted to see how exposure to the PolitiFact graphic might affect how people would respond to both questions, and whether those effects might differ depending on whether a respondent was a Republican (n=191), a Sanders supporter (n=154), a Clinton supporter (n=166), or an “undecided” Democrat/independent (n=111).

Perceptions of relative candidate honesty

Focusing first on the graphic’s effect on evaluations of Clinton’s honesty, relative to that of her two rivals, the charts below reveal that seeing the graphic increased Clinton supporters’ assessments of her honesty by about 9 percentage points relative to Trump’s, and by about 12 percentage points relative to Sanders’s. These differences are pretty small, but could in theory affect supporters’ enthusiasm and therefore turnout.

Moreover, among potential primary voters who were at that time still undecided, exposure to the PolitiFact graphic seemed to increase mean appraisal of Clinton’s honesty by about 14 percentage points relative to Trump (p<.05), and 13 percentage points relative to Sanders (p<.01).

By contrast, and unsurprisingly, Republicans appear to have been unmoved by the PolitiFact graphic; exposure did not affect their evaluations of Clinton’s honesty (or Trump’s, for that matter).

More notably, the same was true of Sanders supporters (who in general were even more likely than Republicans to view Clinton as dishonest, regardless of whether they saw the graphic).

All told, fact-checking seems pretty toothless when it comes to persuading citizens to change their impressions of a political opponent — even when the opponent is in the same partisan family.

Perceptions of fact-checker reliability

What about perceptions of fact-checker reliability? Here the effects are much more striking. As the chart below reveals, when seeing a graphic implying that Clinton is more truthful than her reputation in some quarters suggests, the conclusion many of Clinton’s detractors drew was that it must be “fake news.” Specifically, among those who saw the graphic, Sanders supporters were about 13 percent less likely to view fact-checkers as reliable, and Republicans were about 35 percent less likely to do so.

Furthermore, and somewhat unexpectedly, undecided Democrats and independents also tended to react quite negatively to the graphic. They were about 33 percent less likely to view fact-checkers as reliable, compared with those who did not see the graphic.

The gist: fact-checking is no panacea

To conclude, the results of this experiment suggest that encountering surprises on PolitiFact’s Truth-o-Meter might increase supporters’ enthusiasm toward their candidate, and might even encourage undecided voters to take another look. It does not, however, appear to cause a positive reevaluation of candidates whom voters oppose.

Finally, whatever impact fact-checking might have on how citizens view candidates appears dwarfed by those citizens’ tendency to discredit fact-checking when they don’t like what they see — even among Democrats. This implies that the fact-checkers may have less and less influence over time, as more and more citizens encounter fact-checks that don’t jibe with their preconceived notions, until the whole exercise becomes pointless. And that should worry those of us who have hoped that fact-checking could help re-route the “post-truth” advance in American politics.

David C. Barker is a professor of government and director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University. Find him on Twitter @barkerccps.

Kim L. Nalder is a professor of government and director of the CALSPEAKS Public Opinion Research Center and the Project for an Informed Electorate at California State University Sacramento. Find her on Twitter @KimberlyNalder.

Danielle Joesten Martin is an assistant professor of government at California State University Sacramento. Find her on Twitter @djoestenmartin.

Progressive protesters face longer odds than the Tea Party did

2017-05-11T16:23:54-04:00

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A protest at JFK International Airport, against the immigration ban, February 2017 | Stephanie Keith / Getty

Over the past several weeks, progressives have taken to the streets (and airports, and school gymnasiums, and pipeline paths, and so on) in historic numbers. These public demonstrations owe some lineage to Black Lives Matter and Occupy, but the election and recent executive orders have clearly catalyzed a broader urgency on the left.

The protesters probably aren’t hoping to persuade many GOP legislators directly (let alone the Trump administration). They presumably do have Democrats in their sights, but even if Democrats heed the call, they will be hard-pressed to thwart the right’s agenda now that the filibuster is enfeebled.

So the activists’ real target audience, of course, is the broader citizenry — which is not a bad strategy. Indeed, if all the shouting and clever signs can nudge public opinion even a little to the left on some key issues, then lawmakers might feel pressure to respond.

To pull it off, though, the demonstrators must win the sympathies of people who pay only casual attention to public affairs. And for that to happen, those casual observers must first view protests as legitimate. If they don’t, the protesters may create a boomerang effect when it comes to public opinion (and to their policy goals).

So will these so-called Herbal Tea Party protests win over enough people to make a policy difference, or will they just deepen the backlash? Our new research points to the latter, and provides clues as to why conservative activism, by contrast, enjoyed relative success during the Obama years.

In February 2016, using a representative sample of 725 California residents, we conducted a survey experiment to see if liberals and conservatives view protests differently, and how those attitudes might be conditioned by the ideological goals of particular social movements. A few studies have shown that conservatives hold protesters in disproportionately low regard, but they were conducted with liberal ’60s protests as backdrop. We were interested to see if the ideological differences hold up in an era of prolific conservative unrest (the Tea Party, the pro-life movement, etc.).

First, we prompted all respondents with the following statement:

“In the past year, we have seen several groups of citizens stage disruptive protests against what they see as misuse of government power.”

Then we randomly assigned split halves of the sample to see one of two images. One half of the sample saw an image of conservative protesters at the 2016 Oregon Malheur Wildlife Refuge standoff involving the Bundy family. The image below is very similar to the image used in the experiment (copyright permissions prevent us from publishing the exact same photo as the one used).

The other half of the sample saw an image of Black Lives Matter protesters (again, not the exact image used but a close approximation):

We then asked all respondents: “Would you say that such anti-government protests are ‘appropriate or inappropriate?’” Responses split almost perfectly.

Using probit regression analysis, we looked at how the probability of viewing protests as “appropriate” depends on respondents’ ideology/party identification, the image they saw, and how those two things interact.

Liberals have as much sympathy for their opponents as conservatives do for their friends

As the chart below makes clear, liberal Democrats reveal overwhelming support for the appropriateness of Black Lives Matter protests, while conservative Republicans find such activities from the other side of the aisle (or tracks) illegitimate. But here is the key finding: As the Bundy bars highlight, liberals have as much sympathy for their opponents as conservatives do for their friends. So liberal support ranges from middling to strong, whereas conservative support ranges from weak to middling. No wonder the Tea Party did pretty well over the past eight years but Occupy did not.

So while progressive readers are patting themselves on the back for supporting the First Amendment, it may also be necessary to temper expectations that the current torrent of civil unrest will yield a course change. As we discussed above, to achieve short-term success beyond motivating their existing allies, the protests would have to convince majorities in ideologically red congressional districts and states to pressure legislators into more moderate stances. Given how conservatives seem to feel about protesters — especially liberal ones — we wouldn’t hold our breath.

We are not, however, saying the demonstrators should pack up their placards. In fact, though our findings indicate that they probably won’t make much headway as long as the GOP is in charge, they also suggest that those on the left respect their efforts. They might even be galvanized by them. Indeed, if the agitators can maintain their enthusiasm for about 20 more months, a Democratic congressional majority might be within reach. And then the protesters’ policy goals will be within reach as well.

David C. Barker is currently director of the Institute for Social Research at California State University Sacramento. In August, he will become director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University.

Kim L. Nalder is a professor of government and political director of the CALSPEAKS Opinion Research Center at California State University Sacramento.

Jessica Newham is a research technician at the Institute for Social Research at California State University Sacramento.