How Right-Leaning Media Coverage of COVID-19 Facilitated the Spread of Misinformation in the Early Stages of the Pandemic

Abstract

In recent weeks, several academic and journalistic outlets have documented widespread misinformation about the origins and potential treatment for COVID-19. This misinformation could have important public health consequences if misinformed people are less likely to heed the advice of public health experts. While some have anecdotally tied the prevalence of misinformation to misleading or inaccurate media coverage of the pandemic in its early stages, few have rigorously tested this claim empirically. In this paper, we report the results of an automated content analysis showing that right-leaning news outlets (e.g., Fox News, Breitbart) were more than 2.5 times more likely than mainstream outlets to discuss COVID-19 misinformation during the early stages of the U.S. pandemic response. In a nationally representative survey (N = 8,914) conducted from 3/10-3/16, we then show that people who consumed more right-leaning news during this timeframe were more than twice as likely to endorse COVID-related misinformation. Alarmingly, survey data further suggest that misinformation endorsement has negative public health consequences, as misinformed people are more likely to believe that the CDC is exaggerating COVID-related health risks.

Elderly people and responses to COVID-19 in 27 Countries

“…they focus other explanatory factors and thus only include age to obtain more precise estimates) and do not discuss its implications. [11][12] In other words, the majority of research does not include age as having a potentially non-linear effect on different variables related to COVID-19.…”

The Emergence of COVID-19 in the US: A Public Health and Political Communication Crisis

“…Previous research has indicated that exposure to certain media outlets (particularly Fox News) contributes to politically relevant outcomes (DellaVigna and Kaplan 2007;Feldman et al 2012); new research similarly suggests coronavirus-related mediasource effects. For instance, Matt Motta, Dominik Stecula, and Christina Farhart (2020) found that right-leaning news sources (Fox News, Breitbart) were more likely than others to disseminate specific pieces of misinformation (e.g., that coronavirus is a conspiracy or was made in a lab), and that survey respondents who consumed more right-leaning news were also more likely to endorse misinformation. Similarly, Kathleen Hall Jamieson and Dolores Albarracin (2020) identified associations between exposure to mainstream broadcast news and the correct belief that COVID-19 is more lethal than the flu, exposure to mainstream print news and more accurate beliefs about infection prevention, and exposure to Fox News and Rush Limbaugh and more endorsement of conspiracy beliefs (that the CDC is exaggerating to undermine President Trump).…”

Political polarization in US residents’ COVID-19 risk perceptions, policy preferences, and protective behaviors

“…Although it has been documented that the political inclinations and associated media use of US residents predict their risk perceptions and worry about getting COVID-19 (Dryhurst et al 2020;Motta et al 2020), less is known about their contribution to risk perceptions for experiencing negative economic consequences during the pandemic, their preferences for the timing of opening the economy, and their tendencies to implement protective behaviors. Before the COVID-19 pandemic, a majority of US residents across the political spectrum viewed individuals as personally responsible for their own protective health behaviors to mitigate their health risks (Robert and Booske 2011).…”