Does political extremity harm the ability to identify online information validity? Testing the impact of polarisation through online experiments

Abstract

Ideological polarisation has drawn wide attention from both the general public and researchers. It is frequently argued that under the proliferation of ideological polarisation, echo chambers may be formed while people inside the echo chambers may be less willing to accept alternative political viewpoints and more likely to fall into fake news and online misinformation. To obtain more empirical evidence, we conducted an online experiment that explored the relationship between one's position in the political spectrum and his/her capabilities of identifying political misinformation, as well as the information consumption habits that may help identify online misinformation. While we statistically validated some information consumption habits that can help to identify political misinformation, it was unexpected that political extremists may be indeed more capable of identifying the validity of news and online information. Based on our findings, we also provided a range of theoretical and practical implications.