Academic Research

Social media is used by millions of Americans to access news and politics. Yet there are no studies, to date, examining whether these behaviors systematically vary for those whose political incorporation process is distinct from those in the majority. We fill this void by examining how Latino online political activity compares to that of white Americans and the role of language in Latinos’ online political engagement. We hypothesize that Latino online political activity is comparable to white Americans. Moreover, given media reports suggesting that greater quantities of political misinformation are circulating on Spanish versus English-language social media, we expect that reliance on Spanish-language social media for news predicts beliefs in inaccurate political narratives. Our survey findings, which we believe to be the largest original survey of the online political activity of Latinos and whites, reveal support for these expectations. Latino social media political activity, as measured by sharing/viewing news, talking about politics, and following politicians, is comparable to whites, both in self-reported and digital trace data. Latinos also turned to social media for news about COVID-19 more often than did whites. Finally, Latinos relying on Spanish-language social media usage for news predicts beliefs in election fraud in the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.

In most advanced democracies, concerns about the spread of misinformation are typically associated with feed-based social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook. These platforms also account for the vast majority of research on the topic. However, in most of the world, particularly in Global South countries, misinformation often reaches citizens through social media messaging apps, particularly WhatsApp. To fill the resulting gap in the literature, we conducted a multimedia deactivation experiment to test the impact of reducing exposure to potential sources of misinformation on WhatsApp during the weeks leading up to the 2022 Presidential election in Brazil. We find that this intervention significantly reduced participants’ exposure to false rumors circulating widely during the election. However, consistent with theories of mass media minimal effects, a short-term reduction in exposure to misinformation ahead of the election did not lead to significant changes in belief accuracy, political polarization, or well-being.

Can a series of online conversations with a marginalized outgroup member improve majority group members’ attitudes about that outgroup? While the intergroup contact literature provides (mixed) insights about the effects of extended interactions between groups, less is known about how relatively short and casual interactions may play out in highly polarized settings. In an experiment in India, I bring together Hindus and Muslims for five days of conversations on WhatsApp, a popular messaging platform, to investigate the extent to which chatting with a Muslim about randomly assigned discussion prompts affects Hindus’ perceptions of Muslims and approval for mainstream religious nationalist statements. I find that intergroup conversations greatly reduce prejudice against Muslims and approval for religious nationalist statements at least two to three weeks post-conversation. Intergroup conversations about non-political issues are especially effective at reducing prejudice, while conversations about politics substantially decrease support for religious nationalism. I further show how political conversations and non-political conversations affect attitudes through distinct mechanisms.