Adversarial collaboration among fact-checkers: bipartisanship outweighs partisanship in preferences and trust towards news

Gafari Abiodun Lukumon, Nick Byrd and Brent Strickland
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Gafari Abiodun Lukumon: Universite Mohamed VI Polytechnic, Morocco
Nick Byrd: Geisinger College of Health Sciences

No gp9w7_v1, OSF Preprints from Center for Open Science

Abstract: Have politics and news become so polarized that people prefer co-partisan fact-checkers over bi-partisan fact-checkers? Or despite a polarized political climate, do people nevertheless still prefer bipartisan fact-checking? In this study, we investigated individuals' attitudes toward ideologically heterogeneous (i.e. politically mixed) vs. homogenous fact-checking groups. Across two pre-registered studies (N = 876), we investigated preferences (and motivations) for consulting such groups as well as trust in them. Left- and Right- leaning American participants exhibited a strong preference for bipartisan fact-checking groups, with the greatest preference for political diversity among left-leaning participants. Notably, both left leaning and right leaning participants trusted heterogeneous fact-checking groups as much as their own but expressed lower trust in the opposing political party. These studies suggest that even in a highly polarized political climate, people prefer a diversity of viewpoints to be included in the fact-checking process. This insight may offer a new perspective on overcoming partisan divides in information consumption.

Date: 2024-11-22
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:osf:osfxxx:gp9w7_v1

DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/gp9w7_v1

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