Ideological Asymmetry in the Reach of Pro-Russian Digital Disinformation to United States Audiences
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Ideological Asymmetry in the Reach of Pro-Russian Digital Disinformation to United States Audiences. / Hjorth, Frederik Georg; Adler-Nissen, Rebecca.
In: Journal of Communication, Vol. 69, No. 2, 2019, p. 168-192.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Ideological Asymmetry in the Reach of Pro-Russian Digital Disinformation to United States Audiences
AU - Hjorth, Frederik Georg
AU - Adler-Nissen, Rebecca
PY - 2019
Y1 - 2019
N2 - Despite concerns about the effects of pro-Russian disinformation on Western public opinion, evidence of its reach remains scarce. We hypothesize that conservative individuals will be more likely than liberals to be potentially exposed to pro-Russian disinformation in digital networks. We evaluate the hypothesis using a large data set of U.S.-based Twitter users, testing how ideology is associated with disinformation about the 2014 crash of the MH17 aircraft over eastern Ukraine. We find that potential exposure to disinformation is concentrated among the most conservative individuals. Moving from the most liberal to the most conservative individuals in the sample is associated with a change in the conditional probability of potential exposure to disinformation from 6.5% to 45.2%. We corroborate the finding using a second, validated data set on individual party registration. The results indicate that the reach of online, pro-Russian disinformation into U.S. audiences is distinctly ideologically asymmetric.
AB - Despite concerns about the effects of pro-Russian disinformation on Western public opinion, evidence of its reach remains scarce. We hypothesize that conservative individuals will be more likely than liberals to be potentially exposed to pro-Russian disinformation in digital networks. We evaluate the hypothesis using a large data set of U.S.-based Twitter users, testing how ideology is associated with disinformation about the 2014 crash of the MH17 aircraft over eastern Ukraine. We find that potential exposure to disinformation is concentrated among the most conservative individuals. Moving from the most liberal to the most conservative individuals in the sample is associated with a change in the conditional probability of potential exposure to disinformation from 6.5% to 45.2%. We corroborate the finding using a second, validated data set on individual party registration. The results indicate that the reach of online, pro-Russian disinformation into U.S. audiences is distinctly ideologically asymmetric.
KW - Faculty of Social Sciences
KW - disinformation
KW - misinformation
KW - fake news
KW - political psychology
KW - Russia
KW - Ukraine
KW - partisan selectivity
KW - ideological asymmetry
KW - communication studies
KW - Political Science
KW - Twitter
KW - social media
KW - social data science
U2 - 10.1093/joc/jqz006
DO - 10.1093/joc/jqz006
M3 - Journal article
VL - 69
SP - 168
EP - 192
JO - Journal of Communication
JF - Journal of Communication
SN - 0021-9916
IS - 2
ER -
ID: 217349164