Truth and its bias:
an empirical study about ideological bias and filter bubbles in São Paulo city in the 2018 elections
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.23925/1984-3585.2022i25p96-124Keywords:
Communication, Fake news, Bubble filters, Echo chambers, PoliticsAbstract
In the age of digital information, communication through social networks has boosted the circulation of news and information that are not always true. Inaccurate and distorted news has been used to pollute the public sphere and influence people. With this research, we seek to understand how much preexisting political ideology influences people’s ability to distinguish true news from fake news when exposed to them via social networks - in addition to discussing the complexity of the term Fake News. We also investigated the extent to which echo chambers and bubble filters impact the circulation of certain news within groups with different ideological profiles. In a field survey that interviewed 1,162 people in all regions of the city of São Paulo, demographic and political-ideological data were collected and crossed with the answers provided to define whether or not the interviewees believed in the news they were shown during the interview. Cartes presented by the research assistants contained four false or inaccurate political news (which had been denied by at least two data-checking agencies) and two true news. Respondents were asked if they had already seen that news and, when they responded positively, if they believed what was being said. The results showed that the political-ideological bias directly influences people’s belief about fake news. But, surprisingly, the data did not show a segregation of news between different ideological profiles. As a result, we were unable to prove the influence of bubble filters or echo chambers on the circulation of fake news in the city of São Paulo in 2018, and we will update this scenario for the discussion of the state of the art in 2022 – again, an election year.
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