Technological advances have made it easier for Americans to connect with each other and to find information, including details about the major issues facing the country. But those advances present both challenges and opportunities for individuals and U.S. institutions. … Results of the 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media […] Read more »
The Fake News Crisis That Wasn’t
The media often attributes a portion of Donald Trump’s election to fake news — as in the vintage, original meaning of that term: Macedonian teens making bank on preposterous headlines; the Islamization of Texas, Pizza-shop child-sex conspiracies, etc. Such fabrication, commentators worried, reverberated around online echo chambers so resoundingly that […] Read more »
For Donald Trump, campaigning by Twitter limited the public’s access to his policy positions and strategies
Donald Trump has ensured that Twitter is now inextricably tied to the Presidency of the United States. Over the past 18 months, the social network has become central to political communication, alongside official campaign press releases. Trump, both as presidential candidate, and now as Commander in Chief, has used Twitter […] Read more »
Poll Hub: The Pollsters Strike Back
In this episode of Poll Hub, the brain trust of The Marist Poll shares its poll watcher’s checklist for the 2018 midterm elections for United States Congress. What can pollsters and media pundits do to prevent the public from being pointed in the wrong direction? Stay tuned. Marist Poll Read more »
Politics & Polls podcast: Social Research in the Digital Age
From smart phones to social media, digital technology has changed the way we live — allowing for new explorations of human behavior. Big data now enables scientists to process data about human behavior on a scale never before imaginable. In this episode, Professors Julian Zelizer and Sam Wang interview Matt […] Read more »
‘Fake News’: Wide Reach but Little Impact, Study Suggests
Fake news evolved from seedy internet sideshow to serious electoral threat so quickly that behavioral scientists had little time to answer basic questions about it, like who was reading what, how much real news they also consumed and whether targeted fact-checking efforts ever hit a target. … But now the […] Read more »