Narrow Margins and Misinformation: The Impact of Sharing Fake News in Close Contests

Samuel Rhodes ()
Additional contact information
Samuel Rhodes: Faculty of Political Science, Moravian University, Bethlehem, PA 18018, USA

Social Sciences, 2024, vol. 13, issue 11, 1-22

Abstract: This study investigates the impact of candidates disseminating fake news on voter behavior and electoral outcomes in highly competitive, partisan races. While the effects of fake news on electoral outcomes have been studied, research has yet to examine the impact of candidates’ strategic use of fake news in elections where it may have the greatest impact—close races. This research explores whether the use of fake news influences voter support, particularly among independent voters, in tightly contested elections. Through a conjoint survey experiment involving participants from Amazon MTurk, this study analyzes how variables such as race competitiveness, perceived risk of alienating independents, and the presence of partisan labels affect voter responses to candidates who spread misinformation. The findings indicate that while the competitiveness of a race does not significantly enhance support for candidates sharing fake news, the presence of partisan labels does. These results suggest that voter behavior in response to fake news is more closely tied to partisan identity than to strategic electoral considerations. This study highlights the complex dynamics of misinformation in electoral contexts and its implications for democratic processes.

Keywords: fake news; political communication; elections; political polarization; American politics; survey experiment; political behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: A B N P Y80 Z00 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/11/571/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/13/11/571/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jscscx:v:13:y:2024:i:11:p:571-:d:1505506

Access Statistics for this article

Social Sciences is currently edited by Ms. Yvonne Chu

More articles in Social Sciences from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().