Yet Another Study Shows Mainstream Media Is A Key Vector In Spreading Misinformation

The common "accepted knowledge" these days among many is that the rise of disinformation and conspiracy theories must be driven by social media, and Facebook in particular (with Twitter and YouTube right behind). This theory has always seemed a bit bonkers, and we've pointed to multiple detailed, data-driven studies that showed that cable news was a much bigger driver of misinformation than social media. Specifically, it found that conspiracy theories and misinformation and the like didn't actually "go viral" until after it appeared on cable news.

So, it's good (but not at all surprising) to find yet another study pointing out the same thing. This one, first highlighted by MediaPost, involved a big survey exploring the spread of conspiracy theories -- and found that the mainstream media is often the biggest vector, rather than social media.

Contraryto popular opinion, we found that while technology(and social media specifically) has a role to play inperpetuating CTs, our data suggests that this is not theonly source of information about CTs, and often not themain one either. People are more likely to say they heardabout some CTs from a mainstream' news source(such as TV or a broadsheet or tabloid newspaper) thanthey are from a social media channel. We thereforeneed to be careful about locating technology as thesource of the problem and indeed as the sole focus forpossible solutions

In fact, the study notes:

Our findings suggest that this highly effectivedisinformation campaign, with potentially profoundeffects for both participation in, and the legitimacyof, the 2020 election, was an elite-driven, mass-media led process. Social media played only asecondary role."

Again, none of this says that conspiracy theories aren't spread on social media, because of course they are. But increasing evidence suggests they don't really catch on until the mainstream media gets involved, with TV News being a key vector and newspapers -- both "broadsheets" and "tabloids" -- playing a role as well. And yet, almost no one wants to explore the differing role among these other sources, and many people are solely focused on social media -- perhaps because it's new, and it's always easy to blame the "new" thing.

But it won't get to the root of the problem, and actually can serve to mask the real problems.