Understanding Innovations in Journalistic Practice: A Field Experiment Examining Motivations for Fact-Checking

Graves, Lucas; Nyhan, Brendan; Reifler, Jason

doi:10.1111/jcom.12198

Cited by 171 publications

(130 citation statements)

References 102 publications

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“…Is it correct to see it-as practitioners do-as a US export? I argue elsewhere (Graves 2016;Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016) that fact-checking in the United States marks a clear continuation of the long "interpretive turn" (Barnhurst 2014) in US news, whereby objective journalism has claimed increasing authority to analyze and explain the political world (see also Barnhurst and Mutz 1997;Fink and Schudson 2014). Recent research by Esser and Umbricht (2014) offers evidence of a modest parallel turn toward interpretive newspaper reporting in Western Europe, in corporatist as well as pluralist media systems.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

“…The first dedicated factchecking organization staffed by professional journalists was FactCheck.org, founded in 2003; PolitiFact and the Washington Post's Fact Checker followed in 2007. These organizations form part of a wider surge in political fact-checking since 2004 which spans almost all national print and broadcast newsrooms, including standard-bearers such as the New York Times and National Public Radio, as well as many at the state and local level (Amazeen 2013;Graves, Nyhan, and Reifler 2016;Robertson 2005;Spivak 2011). Fact-checking in the United States can be seen as a professional reform movement:…”

Section: The Fact-checking Movement In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Boundaries Not Drawn

Graves

2016

Journalism Studies

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158

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The last five years have seen a global surge in political fact-checking, reporting that specializes in debunking political misinformation. A growing occupational movement, originating in the United States but increasingly international in scope, has sought to legitimize fact-checking as unbiased journalism, to establish common standards and practices, and to secure reliable funding for this emerging genre. As a genuinely transnational professional movement which includes practitioners from multiple journalistic cultures as well as other fields, fact-checking offers a new site to consider whether and how professional journalism is meaningfully becoming globalized. This paper models a novel approach to mapping a diverse organizational landscape in terms of institutional ties to the fields of journalism, academia, and politics. Drawing on fieldwork from two international gatherings of fact-checkers, I array fact-checking outlets on a ternary graph and review their competing understandings of the mission, the target, and the practices of fact-checking. I highlight areas of convergence as well as divergence in this organizational milieu, focusing particular attention on boundaries not drawn-the willingness of professional journalists in this global movement to share jurisdictional authority with non-journalists. I conclude with suggestions for a comparative research agenda focused on this emergent area of practice.Journalism Studies, 2016 http://dx.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 95%

Section: The Fact-checking Movement In the United Statesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Boundaries Not Drawn

Graves

2016

Journalism Studies

Self Cite

158

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“…While field experiments are a standard in medical and economic research, they are somewhat less common in communication effects research (see Gerber, Karlan, & Bergan, 2009). Field experiments comprise all of the benefits of the more common laboratory designs, but test effects in a natural setting, using only encouraged and not forced experimental treatment (Gerber & Green, 2000;Graves, Nyhan, & Reifler, 2016;Green et al, 2014).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

News Media, Knowledge, and Political Interest: Evidence of a Dual Role From a Field Experiment

Lecheler

Vreese

2017

J Commun

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Political knowledge and political interest are generally positively influenced by news media exposure. Yet, at the same time, knowledge and interest are among the most important predictors of news media exposure in the first place. We conduct a field experiment (N = 393) as a test of this dual function of knowledge and interest in a realistic news media choice setting. We examine whether preexisting interest and knowledge predict which individuals can be encouraged to read an unfamiliar information‐rich newspaper, and if using this newspaper, in turn, has effects on interest and knowledge. Results show that interest and knowledge are predictors of compliance in the experiment. While political knowledge shows some response to the additional news exposure, interest remains stable.

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“…Many news media are however aware of the problem, reacting to the perceived increase in false or misleading information floating around by introducing various factchecking formats and websites. Some scholars even refer to this fact-checking as a movement (Graves, Nyhan, & Reifler, 2016;Spivak, 2011), a new style of journalistic reporting that is concerned with assessing the truth of substantive claims made by politicians.…”

Section: Concern 5: Towards Increasing Relativismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

Aelst

Strömbäck

Aalberg

et al. 2017

Annals of the International Communication Association

613

347

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During the last decennia media environments and political communication systems have changed fundamentally. These changes have major ramifications for the political information environments and the extent to which they aid people in becoming informed citizens. Against this background, the purpose of this article is to review research on key changes and trends in political information environments and assess their democratic implications. We will focus on advanced postindustrial democracies and six concerns that are all closely linked to the dissemination and acquisition of political knowledge: (1) declining supply of political information, (2) declining quality of news, (3) increasing media concentration and declining diversity of news, (4) increasing fragmentation and polarization, (5) increasing relativism and (6) increasing inequality in political knowledge. ARTICLE HISTORY

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Understanding Innovations in Journalistic Practice: A Field Experiment Examining Motivations for Fact-Checking

Cited by 171 publications

References 102 publications

Boundaries Not Drawn

Boundaries Not Drawn

News Media, Knowledge, and Political Interest: Evidence of a Dual Role From a Field Experiment

Political communication in a high-choice media environment: a challenge for democracy?

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