Abstract
High levels of threat and uncertainty characterize the onset of societal crises. Here, people are exposed to conflicting information in the media, including disinformation. Because individuals often base their news selection on pre-existing attitudes, the present study aims to examine selective exposure effects in the face of a crisis, and identify right-wing ideological, trust-, and science-related beliefs that might influence the selection and sharing of disinformation. A representative survey of German internet users (N = 1101) at the time of the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak showed a confirmation bias in crisis-related news selection and sharing. It revealed right-wing authoritarianism and political mistrust as significant predictors of disinformation selection. The influence of social dominance orientation, mistrust in politics, and perceived certainty of knowledge were significant for sharing disinformation. The present results extend previous knowledge about people’s (dis)information behavior in times of crisis, and shed light on groups particularly vulnerable to disinformation.
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Articles in the same Issue
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- Book Reviews
- Kecskes, I. (ed.) (2023). The Cambridge handbook of intercultural pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 875 pp.
- Ritchie, L. D. (2022). Feeling, thinking, and talking: How the embodied brain shapes everyday communication. Cambridge University Press, 350 pp.
- Weiss-Blatt, N. (2021). The Techlash and tech crisis communication. Emerald Publishing. xxi + 185 pp.
Articles in the same Issue
- Titelseiten
- Articles
- Let’s talk about risks. Parental and peer mediation and their relation to adolescents’ perceptions of on- and off-screen risk behavior
- Television from the periphery – Slow television and national identity in Norway
- Extend the context! Measuring explicit and implicit populism on three different textual levels
- Bundles of trust? Examining the relationships between media repertoires, institutional trust, and social contexts
- Successive intertwining of young consumers’ reliance on social media influencers
- Visibility, solidarity, and empowerment via the internet: A case study of young Portuguese activists
- Crisis alert: (Dis)information selection and sharing in the COVID-19 pandemic
- Vaccine-related conspiracy and counter-conspiracy narratives. Silencing effects
- Book Reviews
- Kecskes, I. (ed.) (2023). The Cambridge handbook of intercultural pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 875 pp.
- Ritchie, L. D. (2022). Feeling, thinking, and talking: How the embodied brain shapes everyday communication. Cambridge University Press, 350 pp.
- Weiss-Blatt, N. (2021). The Techlash and tech crisis communication. Emerald Publishing. xxi + 185 pp.