1. Educative Interventions to Combat Misinformation: Evidence From a Field Experiment in India
- Author:
- Sumitra Badrinathan
- Publication Date:
- 12-2020
- Content Type:
- Working Paper
- Institution:
- Center for the Advanced Study of India
- Abstract:
- Misinformation makes democratic governance harder, especially in developing countries. Despite its real-world import, little is known about how to combat misinformation outside of the U.S., particularly in places with low education, accelerating Internet access, and encrypted information sharing. This study uses a field experiment in India to test the efficacy of a pedagogical intervention on respondents’ ability to identify misinformation during the 2019 elections (N=1224). Treated respondents received in-person media literacy training in which enumerators demonstrated tools and tips to identify misinformation in a coherent learning module. Receiving this hour-long media literacy intervention did not significantly increase respondents’ ability to identify misinformation on average. However, treated respondents who support the ruling party became significantly less able to identify pro- attitudinal stories. These findings point to the resilience of misinformation in India and the presence of motivated reasoning in a traditionally non-ideological party system
- Topic:
- Governance, Elections, Social Media, and Misinformation
- Political Geography:
- India