On truth and lying in a political sense

Via Yglesias, new research discusses whether and how political misperceptions (Obama as Muslim, et all) can be corrected.

As expected, we find that the misperception negation was ineffective. However, our hypothesis that the corrective affirmation would successfully reduce misperceptions was only supported when a non-white experimental administrator was present, suggesting a strong social desirability effect on the acceptance of corrective information.

Yglesias concludes:

At the end of the day, it’s extremely difficult to actually counter misinformation, and so society needs there to be disincentives to spreading it.

Calling the mainstream media to task for not actively correcting simply false assertions has been a major task for Yglesias and the blogoshphere/alternative media, and is certainly a noble goal.  However, given that it is pretty difficult to shame cable news anchors via blog post, it’s not clear what disincentives Yglesias has in mind.  Thoughts?

-John

Related posts:

  1. BP and criminal defense
  2. Being right vs. telling the truth
  3. The naked truth about freedom
  4. David Brooks for eternity
  5. Max Weber and realism

June 10, 2009 · Filed Under John, Obama

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    Jacob Bronsther is a law student at NYU, a former Fulbright Scholar to Mauritius, and a graduate of Cornell University. He has an MPhil in Political Theory from the University of Oxford.

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