Political Fact-checking Research Articles

Regional Facts Matter: A Comparative Perspective of Sub-State Fact-Checking Initiatives in Europe

After a significant surge of active fact-checking organisations over the past decade, fact-checkers now operate in more than 100 countries. Although the fact-checking movement is diverse, the majority of organisations function at a national level. However, some organisations operate on a sub-state scale, based either on community or geographic region. These fact-checkers investigate statements relevant to specific populations that might otherwise go unaddressed. In Europe, signatories of the International Fact-Checking Network are active in regions with federal or devolved power. This study brings a comparative analysis of regional fact-checkers in Europe, combining qualitative interviews with editors and managers of these organisations with complementary document analysis. Our findings highlight how organisational formats influence fact-checking motivations, the difference in scope between political fact-checking and debunking routines, and the collaborative relations regional fact-checkers maintain with national and international organisations. This article contributes to the debate surrounding the global fact-checking movement by raising awareness of regional and local fact-checking, which helps address so-called fact deserts.

Fact-Checking Role Performances and Problematic Covid-19 Vaccine Content in Latin America and Sub-Saharan Africa

The move from political fact-checking to a “public health” or debunking model of fact-checking, sustained by policies and funding from platforms, highlights important tensions in the case of Covid-19. Building on findings from studies focused on journalistic role performance, we investigated how professional fact-checkers in Latin America and sub-Saharan Africa conceived of and performed their professional roles when addressing Covid-19 vaccination topics. Interviews with fact-checkers from six well-established, Meta-affiliated, International Fact-Checking Network-accredited organizations operating in these regions indicated that fact-checkers recognized the diversification of tasks and new roles associated with addressing problematic content from social media users. However, fact-checkers expressed unanimous commitment to prioritizing political and media watchdog activities in response to problematic Covid-19 vaccine information spreading from elite sources. To compare these role conceptions with role performance, we conducted a content analysis of Covid-19 vaccine content posted in 2021 to these fact-checkers’ Facebook accounts. We found that content was mostly associated with explainers or debunking content (addressing hoaxes or rumors about Covid-19 vaccines from non-elite social media users). In particular, the abundance of explainers, compared with other genres of fact-checking content, aligns fact-checkers with professional roles as civic service providers, educators, and “interpreters” of health information. Only a small proportion of the Covid-19 vaccine-related posts from each fact-checker contained verifications of claims from authoritative (elite “top-down”) sources (i.e., politicians, media, and health/science professionals). This study offers insights into a particularly tumultuous time of political activity in these regions and considers implications for practice innovation.

Political Fact-checking and Its Effects on Public Attitudes: Experimental Evidence from China

Abstract This study investigates the effect of political misinformation as propaganda on the legitimacy of the Chinese government. A survey experiment (n = 2,236) was conducted to analyse the effect of positively spun misinformation on citizens’ perceptions and support for the government on two pivotal issues: the economy and air pollution. Results show that spreading positively spun misinformation is beneficial to the regime, as it leads to positive perceptions of the issue and increased support for the government. Interestingly, even when misinformation is exposed through credibly sourced corrections, trust and support for the government remain as high or higher than for the control groups. These effects are significant and hold constant in two issue types, underscoring the strategic value of disseminating positively spun yet false information in China. These findings have rich implications for studies of misinformation and fact-checking in general and China's information politics in particular.

Can We Detect Bias in Political Fact-Checking? Evidence from a Spanish Case Study

ABSTRACT Political fact-checkers evaluate the truthfulness of politicians’ claims. This paper contributes to an emerging scholarly debate on whether fact-checkers treat political parties differently in a systematic manner depending on their ideology (bias). We first examine the available approaches to analyze bias and then present a new approach in two steps. First, we propose a logistic regression model to analyze the outcomes of fact-checks and calculate how likely each political party will obtain a truth score. We test our model with a sample of fact-checks from Newtral, a prominent Spanish fact-checker. Our model would signal bias under two assumptions: (a) all political parties are on average equally accurate in their statements; (b) the verification method gives precise instructions and is implemented systematically. We investigate this second assumption with a series of interviews with Newtral fact-checkers. We show that standard verification protocols are loosely implemented and therefore fact-checks reflect a set of journalistic decisions, rather than a bias in the statistical sense. We call for a more rigorous definition of verification methods as a pre-requisite for an unbiased assessment of politician’s claims.

Influences of Media Routines on Fact-Checking:

This exploratory study examined PolitiFact fact-checks (N=18,446) published between 2008 and 2020 to understand the extent to which the largest political fact-checking network in the United States utilizes traditional media routines in finding check-worthy claims and gathering information to verify claims. An automated content analysis revealed that PolitiFact relies more on routine channels of news production to find check-worthy claims than non-routine channels. The results also show that non-elite sources account for a negligible portion of PolitiFact sources, but the organization uses more non-traditional channels to find sources.

The limits of live fact-checking: Epistemological consequences of introducing a breaking news logic to political fact-checking

This article analyses the novel form of live political fact-checking, as performed by the Norwegian fact-checking organisation Faktisk.no during the Norwegian parliamentary election campaign in 2021. The aim of the study was to investigate the epistemological consequences of introducing a breaking news logic to political fact-checking. Through methods of participatory observation, interviews and textual analysis, the study finds that Faktisk.no used several strategies to bridge the ‘epistemic gap’ between the logics of breaking news and political fact-checking. Combined, these strategies pushed the live fact-checking towards a confirmative epistemology, implying that the live political fact-checking confirmed (1) knowledge already believed to be true and (2) hegemonic perspectives on what constitutes important and reliable information. The findings thereby point to a potential reorientation of political fact-checking from being a critical corrective of political elites to confirming the perspectives and knowledge base of the same elites.

The Rise of the Brazilian Fact-checking Movement: Between Economic Sustainability and Editorial Independence

ABSTRACT This study addresses the expansion of Brazilian fact-checking enterprises, focusing on their funding sources and challenges to ensure editorial autonomy. The research is mainly grounded in semi-structured interviews with 16 fact-checkers from 13 active organizations, and includes complementary data collected from the initiatives’ websites. The findings show that the organizational milieu in which fact-checking firms flourish influences their revenue streams. Fact-checkers face different economic and editorial challenges depending on their organizational environment. Nevertheless, their chief business strategy to gain economic viability mainly translates into a solid presence on digital platforms. It involves reaching niche markets on social media and attracting users to their websites. Last, the limited staff of most fact-checking initiatives and their growing dependence on big tech money have led them to modularize their corrections to different platforms and publish debunking at the expense of political fact-checking. In short, this study contributes to the growing scholarship on fact-checking by evidencing that this professional reform movement is dealing with power dynamics familiar to the journalism they want to reform.

Fake news on you, Not me: The Third-Person Effects of Fake News in South Korea

ABSTRACT This study explored the perceptual components of the third-person effects of fake news during the 2017 presidential election in South Korea. Specifically, we examined self-other disparities in perceptions of the effects of fake news using data from an online panel survey. The results indicated that the participants considered the influence of fake news to be greater on others than on themselves. We also found political interest and fact-checking to be significant predictors of the self-other disparities associated with perceptions of fake news. The findings of this study offer fresh insights into third-person effects in the age of post-truth politics.

Political fact-checking in the Middle East: What news can be verified in the Arab world?

Abstract This study examines the news selection processes followed by fact-checking organizations in the Middle East, specifically Egypt, Jordan, and the United Arab Emirates, and gatekeeping such organizations face while working under authoritarian rule. By reviewing fact-checked news posted on the Facebook pages of six Arabic language organizations: Da Begad, HereszTruth, Fatabyyano, Matsad2sh, MisbarFC, and Saheeh Masr, this study manually analyzes about 5,000 fact-checked news stories to understand the extent of political fact-checking performed on Arab presidents, heads of government, and rulers, along with the most verified news topics. Results show that organizations in the Middle East rarely fact-check Arab rulers or refute their claims, while their news selection process prioritizes human interest topics. The study suggests that Arab fact-checkers resort to self-censorship due to gatekeeping influences that impact the region’s media climate.

Voluntary Exposure to Political Fact Checks

For political fact-checking enterprises to be effective, two conditions must be met. Voters must be interested in fact-checks, and the fact-checks must encourage voters to reevaluate their beliefs. Here, we study the former: whether voters are interested in reading fact-checks of political candidates’ statements. We use a simulated campaign environment in which participants’ exposure to fact-checks are voluntary. We find that voters are interested in fact-checking, especially for negative campaigns and personal (versus issue) campaigns. We also find that topics salient to voters are most often fact-checked. Finally, we provide evidence for the operation of a motivated reasoning process, as statements made by less preferred candidates were more deeply scrutinized.

Voluntary Exposure to Political Fact Checks

For political fact-checking enterprises to be effective, two conditions must be met. Voters must be interested in fact-checks, and the fact-checks must encourage voters to reevaluate their beliefs....

Challenges in Political Fact-checking and the Role of Journalism

Challenges in Political Fact-checking and the Role of Journalism

Gaining historical perspective on political fact-checking : the experience of the United States

Gaining historical perspective on political fact-checking : the experience of the United States

Analyzing divergent methodologies for political fact checking: United States and South Korea

ABSTRACTIn this work in progress, we explore methods employed by professional journalists to fact‐check political claims and debunk inaccurate (“fake”) news stories. We content‐analyzed 150 articles evaluating political claims and debunking fake news published by two media companies, the Washington Post (United States) and JTBC (South Korea), during the periods surrounding the recent presidential elections in their respective countries. Overall, the most common types of claims evaluated included false claims made by politicians or political groups about their opponents' positions and numerical and nonnumerical facts. The most frequently used methods for debunking such false claims included consulting with an independent expert in the given topic domain and checking government statistics or documents. There were some variations in the types of false claims focused and debunking methods used between the two fact‐checking organizations.

Does truth matter to voters? The effects of correcting political misinformation in an Australian sample.

In the ‘post-truth era’, political fact-checking has become an issue of considerable significance. A recent study in the context of the 2016 US election found that fact-checks of statements by Donald Trump changed participants' beliefs about those statements—regardless of whether participants supported Trump—but not their feelings towards Trump or voting intentions. However, the study balanced corrections of inaccurate statements with an equal number of affirmations of accurate statements. Therefore, the null effect of fact-checks on participants’ voting intentions and feelings may have arisen because of this artificially created balance. Moreover, Trump's statements were not contrasted with statements from an opposing politician, and Trump's perceived veracity was not measured. The present study (N = 370) examined the issue further, manipulating the ratio of corrections to affirmations, and using Australian politicians (and Australian participants) from both sides of the political spectrum. We hypothesized that fact-checks would correct beliefs and that fact-checks would affect voters’ support (i.e. voting intentions, feelings and perceptions of veracity), but only when corrections outnumbered affirmations. Both hypotheses were supported, suggesting that a politician's veracity does sometimes matter to voters. The effects of fact-checking were similar on both sides of the political spectrum, suggesting little motivated reasoning in the processing of fact-checks.

Deciding what’s true: The rise of political fact-checking in American journalism

Deciding what’s true: The rise of political fact-checking in American journalism

Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity: A Review of Fact-checking Literature

Fact checkers evaluate the truthfulness of political claims appearing in public. The practice has increased enormously in recent years. This review analyses research concerning political fact-checking; it presents what kind of studies have been made about fact-checking and introduces their main findings. Most of the literature focuses either on fact-checking as a profession or on its corrective potential. Research about the effectiveness of fact-checking offers mixed results: some find that fact-checking reduces misperceptions, others that corrections are often ineffective. It is also disputed whether fact checkers are consistent in their conclusions and whether their methods are reliable. Moreover, the literature is overwhelmingly focused in the US context.

Book Review: Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism by Lucas Graves

Book Review: <i>Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism</i> by Lucas Graves

Book Review: Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-checking in American Journalism

Book Review: Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-checking in American Journalism

Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism

In a journalistic moment like ours, that is, rife with conspiracy theories, one-sided political coverage, and outright fake news—that is, real fake news, not the honest reporting that Donald Trump clumsily tries to dismiss as “fake news”—it may surprise some people to realize that the best, most professional mainstream media outlets are more committed than ever to telling the truth. In recent decades, those outlets have suffered attack from all sides: from the right for allegedly harboring a liberal bias; from the left for “he said, she said” stories that let falsehood share the stage with truth; and from high-minded critics of all types for dwelling on political strategy and image more than policy substance. In response, these organizations have developed and strengthened practices to ensure correct and informative coverage. Thus as the perils of superficiality and errancy have grown, so too have the strictures designed to safeguard accuracy. One of the most visible of these new practices is fact-checking—not the kind famously performed by sharp-penciled New Yorker staffers (“internal” fact-checking) but the kind made famous by FactCheck.org, PolitiFact, and the Washington Post's Fact Checker. Born during the presidency of George W. Bush, these entities, along with sporadic features in other news outlets, scrutinize the claims of public officials to judge their veracity. For audiences lost in today's vast, disorienting Medialand, these features provide a needed compass—thoughtful, well-reported accounts of where dubious-sounding factoids came from, how much truth or falsehood they contain, and the context necessary to assess them beyond the Pinocchio noses or rating on the Truth-o-Meter. In Deciding What's True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism, Lucas Graves, an assistant professor of journalism and mass communication at the University of Wisconsin, provides a first-rate history and sociology of these new watchdogs, helping to make sense of their role in the contemporary media ecosystem. Well-researched, carefully argued, and lucidly written, Deciding What's True does an excellent job of sorting out the messy questions of truth and falsehood, fact and opinion, in contemporary politics and journalism.