Abstract
The spread of ‘fake news,’ information that mimics credible reporting in format but not in content or intent, poses potential threats to public health and democracy by misinforming citizens. Understanding whether and how fake news influences individuals’ policy-relevant beliefs and decisions is needed to inform policies and practices to address it. In a preregistered experiment, we ask how exposure to fake climate news casting doubt on the existence of climate change influences individuals’ expressed belief in climate change, their estimate of the scientific consensus regarding it, and their overall trust in scientists. We find little effect of exposure to fake climate news on any of our three dependent variables. Effect sizes associated with exposure were very small, and demographics and political ideology were stronger predictors of beliefs. Our findings suggest exposure to fake climate news is unlikely to strongly influence climate skepticism.
Highlights
The spread of ‘fake news,’ information that mimics credible reporting in format but not in content or intent (Lazer et al 2018), poses potential threats to public health and democracy
Our study examined the effects of exposure to fake climate news on respondents’ beliefs about climate change, viewing these beliefs as key antecedents to climate change-relevant decision-making and policy support (e.g. Bord et al 2000, van der Linden et al 2015, 2019)
Exposure to misinformation In order to test the effects of exposure to fake news, we draw on the psychological literature on misinformation, viewing fake news as a subset of the broader category of misinformation
Summary
Keywords: fake news, misinformation, climate change, science communication Supplementary material for this article is available online Original content from this work may be used under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 licence. Any further distribution of this work must maintain attribution to the author(s) and the title of the work, journal citation and DOI.
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