Portrayals of the Black Lives Matter Movement in Hard and Fake News and Consumer Attitudes Toward African Americans

Abstract

Our study examined the relationship between media portrayals of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement in hard and fake news in varying media modalities (print versus video) and participant attitudes toward African Americans. We also examined sociodemographic factors that may be related to susceptibility of fake news. Participants were primed with either hard or fake news (print or video) prior to completing the online questionnaire. Participants included 385 college students from a large southeastern public university. The findings revealed a direct effect of fake news on attitudes toward African Americans but only if the news was from a printed media modality. Hard news also had a positive impact on participant attitudes if from a printed media modality. These findings may help explain why information learned via fake news is persistent over time. Biological sex and political affiliation were associated with the impact of media priming on participants, with male and Republican participants being more susceptible to the effects of fake news. The results of this study should be helpful to those involved in policy making regarding social media and fake news and are timely considering that the BLM movement is growing stronger and the increase in fake news is ongoing.