A new study has found that political fandom moderates the effects of partisanship on biased information seeking and sharing. The findings by Won-Ki Moon, University of Florida College of Journalism and Communications Advertising assistant professor, and Soobyn Lee from Incheon National University in Korea are featured in “Who Seeks and Shares Misinformation About Politicians? Focusing on the Roles of Party- and Politician-Level Social Identities” published in the Journal of Information Science on Nov. 13.

The authors constructed a predictive model for biased information seeking and sharing as a response to misinformation. Their model allows for forecasting of what types of individuals are more likely to skip the fact-checking process and share misinformation.

According to the authors, “The goal of this research is to shed light on the individuals’ motivations in seeking and sharing political information in the setting of elections, focusing on false information about specific politicians. The results suggest that political fandom can control the impact of partisanship on information behaviors and indicates the existence of a hierarchy in the social identities of an individual.”

They add, “The findings of this study reveal the interaction between political partisanship and information behavior considering social identity theory. Our research model indicates that political fandom moderates the effects of partisanship on biased information seeking and sharing; Partisanship drives biased information sharing when individuals have a high level of political fandom, while partisanship causes biased information seeking when political fandom is low.”

Posted: November 21, 2023
Category: College News
Tagged as: Advertising, Journal of Information Science, Misinformation, Partisanship, Political Fandom, Won-Ki Moon