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Political Knowledge and Misinformation in the Era of Social Media: Evidence From the 2015 UK Election

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 December 2020

Kevin Munger Open the ORCID record for Kevin Munger [Opens in a new window] ,
Patrick J. Egan ,
Jonathan Nagler ,
Jonathan Ronen  and
Joshua Tucker
Kevin Munger*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science and Social Data Analytics, Penn State University, State College, PA, USA
Patrick J. Egan
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, New York University, USA
Jonathan Nagler
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, Center of Data Science, and Social Media and Political Participation Laboratory, New York University, USA
Jonathan Ronen
Affiliation:
Berlin Institute for Medical Systems Biology, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany
Joshua Tucker
Affiliation:
Department of Politics, Department of Russian and Slavic Studies, Center of Data Science, and Social Media and Political Participation Laboratory, New York University, USA
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: kmm7999@psu.edu
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Abstract

Does social media educate voters, or mislead them? This study measures changes in political knowledge among a panel of voters surveyed during the 2015 UK general election campaign while monitoring the political information to which they were exposed on the Twitter social media platform. The study's panel design permits identification of the effect of information exposure on changes in political knowledge. Twitter use led to higher levels of knowledge about politics and public affairs, as information from news media improved knowledge of politically relevant facts, and messages sent by political parties increased knowledge of party platforms. But in a troubling demonstration of campaigns' ability to manipulate knowledge, messages from the parties also shifted voters' assessments of the economy and immigration in directions favorable to the parties' platforms, leaving some voters with beliefs further from the truth at the end of the campaign than they were at its beginning.

Keywords

social mediapolitical campaignsUK parliamentpanel surveyspolitical knowledge
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 52 , Issue 1 , January 2022 , pp. 107 - 127
Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2020. Published by Cambridge University Press

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