Research Symposium

BIO

I'm Hunter Click and I'm from Jacksonville, Florida, and I am a senior majoring in Political Science. I'm also a student in the Honors College as well as the Research Intensive Bachelor's Certification program. My research interests include polarization, political uses of social media, and public opinion. In the future, I'd like to do more research on these specific areas and pursue a career as a data analyst in the campaign field.

The Web of Lies: The Spread of Hyperpartisan News and Extreme Polarization

Abstract

The mission that lies within this research project is to evaluate and pinpoint the effects that “fake news” places upon the information gathering activities of participants. It achieves this mission by responding to two questions in reference to the behavior over networks. The first question presented is as such: Can a user of social media detect and differentiate aspects of fake news from a sea of truth? Consequently, the second question is as follows: Would a user willingly choose a piece of fake news over news that is truthful, and if so, why? This research project will observe all of the various factors that could influence a user to favor fake news over news that is truthful, such as partisanship, topic relevance, and endorsement levels. This is an analysis and discussion of current literature alongside reviewing the lack of significant empirical studies covering the effects of fake news in the form of political knowledge gathering activities. The questions shown above will be answered by an experimental conjoint analysis survey that mirrors the social media feeds of participants. Thus, investigating the ultimate effect that fake news places upon society, an effect that is, in the study of political science, both unique and new.

Keywords: Social Media Misinformation Facebook Partisan