The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Simonov, Andrey; Sacher, Szymon; Dubé, Jean-Pierre; Biswas, Shirsho

doi:10.3386/w27237

Cited by 183 publications

(80 citation statements)

References 0 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Trust in government sources (the CDC, the FDA, and local health departments) had a positive association with accurate knowledge about COVID-19, whereas trust in private sources and social networks had a negative association. Consistent with our findings, other studies have shown that private media sources distribute messages that can reduce public trust in scientific knowledge and health policies [28,29]. Several studies have shown that social networks can become a platform for the distribution of misinformation.…”

Section: Principal Findingssupporting

confidence: 92%

Association Between Public Knowledge About COVID-19, Trust in Information Sources, and Adherence to Social Distancing: Cross-Sectional Survey (Preprint)

Ilona¹,

Lucas²,

Henke³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

BACKGROUND Success of behavioral interventions and policies designed to reduce the impact of COVID-19 depends on how well individuals are informed about both the consequences of infection and the steps that are needed to reduce the impact of the virus. OBJECTIVE To inform future policies related to critical information distribution, we investigated associations between public knowledge about COVID-19, adherence to social distancing, and public trust in government information sources (e.g. CDC), private sources (e.g. FOX, CNN), and social networks (e.g. Facebook, Twitter). METHODS We conducted a cross-national survey (n=1243) between April 10th –14th, 2020. Data collection was stratified by US region and other demographics to ensure representativeness of the sample. RESULTS Government information sources were the most trusted among the public. However, we observed a trend in the data that suggested variations in trust by age and gender. White and older populations generally expressed higher trust in government sources, while non-white and younger populations expressed higher trust in private sources (e.g. CNN) and social networks (e.g. Twitter). Trust in government sources was positively associated with accurate knowledge about COVID-19 and adherence to social distancing. Whereas, trust in private sources (e.g. FOX, CNN) was negatively associated with knowledge about COVID-19. Similarly, trust in social networks (e.g. Facebook and Twitter) was negatively associated with both knowledge and adherence to social distancing. CONCLUSIONS During pandemics, like the COVID-19 outbreak, policymakers should carefully consider the quality of information disseminated through private sources and social networks. Furthermore, when disseminating urgent health information, a variety of information sources should be utilized to ensure that diverse populations have timely access to critical knowledge. CLINICALTRIAL

show abstract

Section: Principal Findingssupporting

confidence: 92%

Association Between Public Knowledge About COVID-19, Trust in Information Sources, and Adherence to Social Distancing: Cross-Sectional Survey (Preprint)

Ilona¹,

Lucas²,

Henke³

et al. 2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…It is possible that those who do not have a strong media preference are more easily swayed by misleading information compared with those who trust and follow health messaging provided by more factual information sources like CNN. 18 Given that over half of our sample have equal or no preferences, this observation provided insight that biased and false health messaging provided by big media sources like Fox may affect not only its group of loyal viewers but also some broader audience who are indifferent in terms of information sources.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

“…This observation matched previous literature. A study by Simonov et al 18 showed that an increase in Fox News viewership was associated with a reduction in the tendency to stay at home. A different study by Anderson used cellular mobility data and found that areas with a higher share of CNN viewers had a larger increase in the fraction of devices staying at home, whereas an increase in Fox News viewership was associated with a decrease in the share of devices staying at home.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For instance, Fox News quickly changed its narrative from describing the pandemic as a ‘hoax’ to referring to the virus as a ‘crisis’ after President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency. 18 However, starting in April, Fox News changed their narrative again to push for reopening of the economy by downplaying the significance of the pandemic and instead focusing on the importance of the economy to the health and well-being of Americans. 19…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Media trust and infection mitigating behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA

et al. 2020

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

IntroductionThe COVID-19 pandemic is an unprecedented public health crisis. It is becoming increasingly clear that people’s behavioural responses in the USA during this fast-changing pandemic are associated with their preferred media sources. The polarisation of US media has been reflected in politically motivated messaging around the coronavirus by some media outlets, such as Fox News. This resulted in different messaging around the risks of infection and behavioural changes necessary to mitigate that risk. This study determined if COVID-related behaviours differed according to trust in left-leaning or right-leaning media and how differences changed over the first several months of the pandemic.MethodsUsing the nationally representative Understanding America Study COVID-19 panel, we examine preventive and risky behaviours related to infection from COVID-19 over the period from 10 March to 9 June for people with trust in different media sources: one left-leaning, CNN and another right-leaning, Fox News. People’s media preferences are categorised into three groups: (1) those who trust CNN more than Fox News; (2) those who have equal or no preferences and (3) those who trust Fox News more than CNN.ResultsResults showed that compared with those who trust CNN more than Fox news, people who trust Fox News more than CNN engaged in fewer preventive behaviours and more risky behaviours related to COVID-19. Out of five preventive and five risky behaviours examined, people who trust Fox News more than CNN practised an average of 3.41 preventive behaviours and 1.25 risky behaviours, while those who trust CNN more than Fox News engaged in an average of 3.85 preventive and 0.94 risky behaviours, from late March to June. The difference between these two groups widened in the month of May (p≤0.01), even after controlling for access to professional information and overall diversity of information sources.ConclusionsOur findings indicate that behavioural responses were divided along media bias lines. In such a highly partisan environment, false information can be easily disseminated, and health messaging, which is one of the few effective ways to slowdown the spread of the virus in the absence of a vaccine, is being damaged by politically biased and economically focused narratives. During a public health crisis, media should reduce their partisan stance on health information, and the health messaging from neutral and professional sources based on scientific findings should be better promoted.

show abstract

“…From the specific perspective of who is exposed to distance learning, however, our findings reveal clear disparities. Given that lower-income and/or non-white students already tend to fall behind academically, their greater exposure to school closures and distance learning may exacerbate socio-economic and racial/ethnic gaps in learning outcomes 13 In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, SafeGraph data have frequently been applied to measure the share of a community's residents who appear to be social distancing or who appear to be engaged in full-time work [25][26][27][28][29][30] . For our purposes, we measure foot traffic to more than 100,000 schools across nearly every county in the U.S. to evaluate how the number of visits to each school in a given month in 2020 (say, December 2020) compares to the number of visits 12 months prior (December 2019).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large Socio-Economic, Geographic, and Demographic Disparities Exist in Exposure to School Closures and Distance Learning

Parolin¹,

Lee²

2020

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The COVID-19 pandemic has prompted many school districts to turn to distance or at-home learning. Studies are emerging on the negative effects of distance learning on educational performance. Less is known, however, about the socio-economic, geographic, and demographic characteristics of students exposed to distance-learning across the United States. We introduce a U.S. School Closure & Distance Learning Database that tracks in-person attendance across more than 100,000 schools from January through October 2020. We measure year-over-year change in in-person attendance for each school throughout 2020 to estimate whether the school is engaged in distance learning after the onset of the pandemic. Our findings reveal large socio-economic, geographic, and demographic disparities in exposure to distance learning. In October 2020, schools recording the lowest third-grade math scores are nearly twice as likely to be closed compared to schools recording the highest math scores. The average racial composition of closed schools is 25 percentage points less white compared to schools operating in-person (40% versus 65%). Moreover, closures are more common in schools with a higher share of students who experience homelessness, are of limited English proficiency, are eligible for free or reduced-price school lunch, live in single-parent families, or are racial/ethnic minorities. Distance learning is more common in high schools and middle schools relative to elementary schools, but disparities in exposure to distance learning are comparable across school type. Given the potential negative consequences of school closures on educational performance, the vast inequalities in exposure to distance learning portend rising disparities in learning outcomes.

show abstract

The Persuasive Effect of Fox News: Non-Compliance with Social Distancing During the Covid-19 Pandemic

Cited by 183 publications

References 0 publications

Association Between Public Knowledge About COVID-19, Trust in Information Sources, and Adherence to Social Distancing: Cross-Sectional Survey (Preprint)

Association Between Public Knowledge About COVID-19, Trust in Information Sources, and Adherence to Social Distancing: Cross-Sectional Survey (Preprint)

Media trust and infection mitigating behaviours during the COVID-19 pandemic in the USA

Large Socio-Economic, Geographic, and Demographic Disparities Exist in Exposure to School Closures and Distance Learning

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About