Misinformation and Fact-checking: Research Findings from Social
Science From “death panels” and WMD claims to 9/11 conspiracies
and falsehoods about President Obama’s religion, misinformation
and unverified assertions play an outsized role in American
public life and discourse. A 2012 report from the New America
Foundation, “Misinformation and Fact-checking: Research Findings
from Social Science,” examines relevant cognitive and
psychological research on public policy-related communications.
The report, from scholars at Dartmouth College and Georgia State
University, makes a series of recommendations for news
organizations seeking to correct false or misleading
information. These strategy recommendations are based on
research findings in the following problem areas: - Information
deficit fallacy: Simply giving citizens more facts does not
always change their policy opinions. Studies that have given
respondents more information about such issues as welfare,
immigration or the Iraq war have not always shown tha