Debating the Truth: The Impact of Fact-Checking During Electoral Debates

How does fact-checking influence individuals’ attitudes and evaluations of political candidates? Fact-checking plays an increasingly important role in U.S. elections, yet we know little about its impact on voters. To answer this question, I conduct an experiment utilizing one political debate from t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:American politics research 2017-03, Vol.45 (2), p.304-331
Main Author: Wintersieck, Amanda L.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Attitudes
Candidates
Debates
Elections
Political campaigns
Race
Respondents
State elections
Truth
Voters
Voting
Citations: Items that this one cites
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Summary:How does fact-checking influence individuals’ attitudes and evaluations of political candidates? Fact-checking plays an increasingly important role in U.S. elections, yet we know little about its impact on voters. To answer this question, I conduct an experiment utilizing one political debate from the 2013 New Jersey Gubernatorial race in combination with fact-checks that offer either confirming information or corrective information to determine how fact-checking influences evaluations of candidates. I find that evaluations of the candidate’s debate performance and evaluations of the debate winner are improved by the presence of a fact-check that confirms the accuracy of a candidates’ statement and lowered by fact-checks that state that a candidate is being dishonest. Moreover, respondents indicate greater willingness to vote for a candidate when the fact-check indicates that the candidate is being honest. These findings suggest that fact-checking can influence people’s evaluations of political events.
ISSN:1532-673X
1552-3373
DOI:10.1177/1532673X16686555