People Who Know How the News Is Made Resist Conspiratorial Thinking (arstechnica.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: Conspiracy theories, like the world being flat or the Moon landings faked, have proven notoriously difficult to stomp out. Add a partisan twist to the issue, and the challenge becomes even harder. Even near the end of his second term, barely a quarter of Republicans were willing to state that President Obama was born in the U.S. If we're seeking to have an informed electorate, then this poses a bit of a problem. But a recent study suggests a very simple solution helps limit the appeal of conspiracy theories: news media literacy. This isn't knowledge of the news, per se, but knowledge of the companies and processes that help create the news. While the study doesn't identify how the two are connected, its authors suggest that an understanding of the media landscape helps foster a healthy skepticism.

[...] "Despite popular conceptions," the authors point out, "[conspiratorial thinking] is not the sole province of the proverbial nut-job." When mixed in with the sort of motivated reasoning that ideology can, well, motivate, crazed ideas can become relatively mainstream. Witness the number of polls that indicated the majority of Republicans thought Obama wasn't born in the U.S., even after he shared his birth certificate. While something that induces a healthy skepticism of information sources might be expected to help with this, it's certainly not guaranteed, as motivated reasoning has been shown to be capable of overriding education and knowledge on relevant topics.

[...] As a whole, the expected connection held up: "for both conservatives and liberals, more knowledge of the news media system related to decreased endorsement of liberal conspiracies." And, conversely, the people who did agree with conspiracy theories tended to know very little about how the news media operated.

Comments

How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

People who understand that mass media is nothing more than a branch of some corporations PR department, tend to not believe the unverified B.S.spouted by mass media.

Film at 11.

Re:How News is "Made"

[dgatwood]

It's not quite that simple. It isn't that they are mouthpieces for corporate PR, so much as that they don't always look too carefully at the PR blurbs that corporations send out, nor apply a healthy enough dose of skepticism.

The problem fundamentally is that at the local level, journalism doesn't pay very well, and only a few people are lucky enough to make it to the top tier TV/radio/newspaper outlets where it does pay well. This means most of the best and brightest tend to avoid the whole field unless they are really motivated. You have to assume that most of the people doing the reporting and investigating did not double-major in anything, and have no deep knowledge of any other subject besides communications, lack solid grounding in statistics, and so on, which makes them easier to mislead. And by the time they get old enough to be cynical enough to distrust the corporate PR stuff, they're too expensive to keep on the payroll.

Of course, eventually even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and there are a lot of journalists out there, so in aggregate, mistakes tend to be self-correcting eventually, but it's a very real problem, and IMO is getting worse with each passing year.

Re:How News is "Made"

[CanHasDIY]

Of course, eventually even a blind squirrel finds a nut once in a while, and there are a lot of journalists out there, so in aggregate, mistakes tend to be self-correcting eventually, but it's a very real problem, and IMO is getting worse with each passing year.

As of last week, CNN was continually bandying about this story, that the Trump administration had handed down a list of "banned terms" to the CDC.

Thing is, there is no such list, and no one ever said any terms were banned... but CNN has yet to announce any sort of retraction for the blatantly and demonstrably false claims they're perpetuating.... and they're far from the sole villian in this regard (looking at you, MSNBC and Fox).

Ergo, I don't expect much if any self-correction in the near future, any more than I expect banks to self-regulate without destroying the economy.

Re:How News is "Made"

[Jane Q. Public]

No, your own story is inaccurate.

What the CDC director actually said was "There are NO banned words at CDC." emphasis mine

That statement was reported by sources across the media spectrum, from Left to Right. So why did you get it wrong?

Re:How News is "Made"

[umghhh]

Statistics and reasoning and ability to make arguments w/o at least denigrating the opponent are skills not available to majority of humankind. This is a major fail and something we will never alleviate, not in all humans. So there is a problem in the whole population. You can see it everywhere else - in SW development or engineering (which sadly SW development has hardly ever become). What I observe is that even publications that used to (try to) stay objective like the Economist are suffering from major 'left' tilt.The public is agitated and this shows here too.

Re:How News is "Made"

[RedK]

Follow the link to CNN and read the story. It includes that quote and others.

Both statements are true, it just took some time for the full facts to come out.

So why did you get it wrong? Didn't read the article before condemning it?

The story is plain wrong. There are no banned words, not even in budget submissions. You can literally use the words and no one will bat an eyelash. Nor did the White House ever say "These words are banned".

CNN and other leftist media are exagerating a story where some manager at CDC said : "If we want our funding approved for projets, make sure these projects are not about topics the administration doesn't feel the CDC should get involved with, because they are running the governement on lean right now".

It's much more nuanced than the coverage. What the heck does the CDC have to do with Diversity to begin with ? Yes, that would be a red alarm to the current administration that a proposal with the word "Diversity" is overspending and thus it wouldn't get approved. And thus the suggestion to people to not use that word. It's not banned. Think of it like someone telling the DOD to not use the words "Nation Building" in a budget report. It's not that it's banned, it's that the President made it clear in many speeches that the overall direction of the DOD is not to nation build.

Re:How News is "Made"

[AmiMoJo]

The CDC decided not to use certain words in their funding report, because those words might trigger members of the government. Instead they used euphemisms. The words included things like "transgender".

These facts are not in dispute. You are trying to dispute the use of the word "ban", arguing that it is instead self censorship due to the potential triggering which is somehow functionally different and/or not as bad.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

The Birth Certificate was verified by the Republican Governor of Hawaii personally, something no Governor had ever done before. The inconsistencies didn't exist. And more than one site proving them was proven to have introduced them themselves, just to point them out.

There is lots of evidence he was born in HI, and no evidence he wasn't. Even if he wasn't born in HI, the law today would have granted him citizenship at birth (And yes, you can retroactively apply that to a birth before a law change). So, he was born in HI. All the evidence says he was. No evidence exists that he wasn't. And even if he wasn't, he'd still have been eligible to be president.

Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[Anonymous Coward]

Sometimes the conspiracies are true and worse than we ever imagined.

Re:Uh-huh, the NSA wasn't spying on us. Really.

[HornWumpus]

All the craziest conspiracy theorists are part of the few conspiracies that are true.

They're acting like gibbering fools to discredit those telling you the world is flat.

You know what also helps? Having a personality

[H3lldr0p]

No. I'm being serious. Having a deep understanding of yourself, having an identity that goes beyond "I am for X" & "I am against Y" provides an bulwark against propaganda and conspiracies. Watch kids. They start out believing everything parents tell them. Once they take on traits that their parents don't have, you can see them begin the first phases of critical self-assessment.

All of this can be achieved in many ways. The best comes in the form of exposure. Exposure to philosophy. Exposure to culture. Exposure to other people and their lives.

You want to stop conspiracies and propaganda dead in its tracks? Get your kids out of your comfort zones and into the real world.

Re:You know what also helps? Having a personality

[Dread_ed]

Very interesting post. I remember as a child having a very firmly defined sense of right and wrong, truth and non-truth. It was binary and relatively uninformed, however as I began to read the encyclopedias at my house I developed a system of grading "truth" and knowledge that was no longer binary. There was true, false, told as true (or false) when it was known to bet the opposite, told as true (or false) by many but unsubstantiated, generally known as true (and it is not), generally known as false (and it is not), generally known as wither true or false (and it is!), reported as true (or false) merely for entertainment, reported as true (or false) merely to be contradictory, reported as true (or false) merely to be inflammatory, devils advocacy (I didn't call it this as a child, I leaned the phrase much later when accused of doing it by a teacher)...There were more, many more.

After a couple of years of this, at about age 9, I realized that the vast majority of human beings I was forced to interact with were completely full of shit, had no regard for actual truth and knowledge, and carried around a bunch of completely false information in their heads that allowed them to justify their own actions without ever engaging in any serious introspection or circumspect examination of reality.

Nothing I have seen in the rest of my time on this planet has contradicted this thought with regard to the vast majority of humans.

The problem with exposure as a panacea for this type of pervasive thought is that people continue to bring themselves with them to their new areas of exposure. They go to church, and because they are judgmental and small minded, turn God into a judgmental and small minded reflection of themselves. They go to school, and because they are both insecure and tyrannical, they turn their schools into adult daycare with whacked out cultural rules that prevent humans from ever having a real interaction with other humans. They go to work, and because they are obsessed with their own success as a means to quiet their own insecurity and inadequacy, they create an environment where everyone needs to watch their back, must be guarded, defensive of their position and reputation lest someone stomp all over their future prospects. Ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

I get what you are saying though. Exposure is key, like the Mark Twain quote about travel implies. However, it also takes a receptive spirit for that exposure to do it's work.

What is missing is simple, and can be summed up in one word: Humility.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[BrookHarty]

Exactly, He didn't even need to be born in Hawaii, born to 1 American Parent is all it takes. Obama could have been born in Kenya but it wouldn't have mattered.

What made it weird was people didn't know what a short form birth certificate was, why it took weeks to be verified, should have been an open and shut news article.

People who believe in conspiracies

[Opportunist]

When you look at the "conspiracy nuts" you will notice a pattern. It is usually people who feel that they are "left out", that they're not in an "in" circle in whatever way that may be defined. Usually, it means that they're left out of being one of the "knowing ones", the ones that share a secret or at least something that elevates them above the others, something that gives them an "edge", if only a perceived one.

And a conspiracy theory allows them to feel that they belong to the "knowing ones" for a change. Because they now know something, something "secret", that everyone else doesn't know. And they knew it first!

Funny enough, whether that's true or even possible doesn't really matter. What matters is that they know it, and they knew it before the "smart" people did.

This is a powerful motivator. Because it lets you feel superior. You "get" it, you understand, you are one of the knowing ones, and the others, those sheeple, they don't. They are clueless, they don't understand, they don't know.

If you're usually the clueless one who neither knows nor understands, this can motivate quite a bit. And it can motivate you to cling to it, no matter what. Because letting go would require you to admit that you've, as usual, been the clueless idiot.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[tinkerton]

The controlled demolition theory is commonly called a conspiracy theory. So are the people who take it serious a bunch of nuts? I doubt it very much and I am also not inclined to call it unscientific. Wrong probably, and messy (very difficult to draw conclusions) but not unscientific. Since it's so messy in practice a lot of people will not be convinced if proven wrong.
The main reason for calling it a conspiracy theory is it's coupled with deep distrust of the government and this is considered unfounded.I consider that distrust well founded but I think it's a bad theory so there you go.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

Apple doesn't do the low end. They never have as far back as I can remember. You want to spend less than $100 on a smartphone, buy an Android. If you want a high-end phone, the iPhone is roughly as expensive as its Android equivalents, so it's pay your money and take your choice.

Re:People who believe in conspiracies

[david_thornley]

The pattern with conspiracy nuts is that they're so sure of what they believe that they have to find reasons, however far-fetched, why anyone disagreeing with them is wrong or corrupt or something. Say I were a global warming denier. I'd have to find ways to discredit anyone who disagreed with me and any evidence I found inconvenient. Since scientists almost universally agree that AGW is happening and that it will be bad, I have to find reasons why the scientists are necessarily wrong, and this varies from accusing them of total incompetence to accusing them of being in a vast conspiracy. Since there's lots of evidence that the temperatures are generally going up, I have to find ways to discredit the evidence. Since I'm a denier, I have the choice of staying a denier or actually considering evidence.

There have been conspiracies, and there has been evidence of conspiracy even when there wasn't one. It's entirely possible to believe in a conspiracy without being a conspiracy nut

Correlations

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that the rates of ice cream consumption and murder both rise at almost the same rate? That's because people get irritable when it is too hot for their comfort.

The entire basis for this article is meaningless, "While the study doesn't identify how the two are connected, its authors suggest that an understanding of the media landscape helps foster a healthy skepticism." Correlation DOES NOT EQUAL causation. The study basically discovered nothing at all.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[fahrbot-bot]

There is lots of evidence he was born in HI, and no evidence he wasn't.

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

Survey results released by YouGov Friday show that 51 percent of Republicans said they think former President Barack Obama was born in Kenya, compared to just 14 percent of Democrats. Perhaps unsurprisingly, respondents who voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 election were especially convinced of Obama's African origins: Fully 57 percent said it was "definitely true" or "probably true" that the 44th president came from Kenya.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[gurps_npc]

How to tell if someone is trustworthy:

1) When they make a statement, for example that parts of a birth certificate were clearly modified, they back it up with specifics, ideally a copy of the evidence and another, comparison copy to show the difference between modified and not-modified.

The shmucks that don't provide this proof are either a) Morons, or b) paid to lie

2) They spend more time establishing their own trustworthiness, rather than simply claiming that other sources - such at 'the media' are not trustworthy. When they not only refuse to do this, but insist on their anonymity, then they are either: a) Totally paranoid or b) paid to lie. In either case, they are not trustworthy.

3) Being a citizen is fairly easy for most people to prove. It happens all the time in courts of law. Able to run for President is not supposed to be a harder to prove, it should be easier (otherwise the Constitution would have discussed it further). Genetic tests, established records, even newspaper announcements etc. are all considered proof. People reject them only if they are a) Morons b) being paid to lie.

Given these simple fact, there is the possibility that you are being paid to lie. But I don't think so. Frankly you did such a poor job of it, I can't think of anyone so desperate as to pay you to lie. If they did, they should get their money back.

That kind of leaves only one explanation for your post. Most states offer guaranteed employment for people like you, though usually they don't pay minimum wage.

Establishment media

[Tailhook]

This "journal" is a McCune operation; the ultra wealthy widow of a banker that funds all manner of establishment approved non-profits and academics. In addition to being the ultimate paymaster of no end of well connected non-profits they fund lots of (D) campaigns in the North East [1,2].

1. https://www.followthemoney.org...
2. https://www.followthemoney.org...

Enjoy your establishment kool-aid. It's telling you want you want to hear so I'm sure the fact that it's 1% "bankster " funded "research" won't be an issue as it ricochets around the liberal echo chamber.

There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at wo

[SuperKendall]

They make much of (supposedly) a quarter of Republicans "willing to state" that Obama was born in the U.S. (citation needed).

However in the meantime 100% of Democrats seem to STILL think Trump has some kind of magical tie to Russia, even though it turns out Hillary paid for the report the FBI used to make that claim. Even though Trump keeps doing things Russia does not like at all.

Someone still has a long ways to go before they shed "conspiratorial thinking", but it's apparently not the people who "know how the news is MADE" (Freudian slip emphasized).

Critical Thinking

[mentil]

Sounds like in a roundabout way they're describing metacognition, or critical thinking. The latter can find the flaws in a conspiracy theory.
I think what happens is that the more you understand how the news media is made of flawed individuals who get it wrong sometimes, the less you take 'the news' as gospel handed down from upon high by the omniscient.

Russians conspired with Trump

[tomhath]

It must be true, just ask any Democrat.

Re:Russians conspired with Trump

[Xyrus]

Or any federal grand jury issuing indictments against high ranking members of the Trump campaign.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[rogoshen1]

That's not how conspiracy theories work. Conspiracy theories exist outside the realm of facts. You cannot use facts, reason, or logic to refute them -- because if someone has performed the requisite mental gymnastics to believe in one in the first place, any additional facts that come their way will be dealt with in similar fashion. Further, the more facts/arguments that are piled on, the more entrenched they become (because after all, if there wasn't something to the conspiracy, why would people expend so much energy to refute it?)

  So, you can either argue till you're blue in the face (and get no where) or simply ignore them, and they'll fade away on their own.

Very much like capitalism conspiracy theories

[SlaveToTheGrind]

People who have actually run a business (or at least been involved in the higher-level management of one) are a lot less likely to believe that typical corporations make money hand over fist for doing next to nothing, are deliberately looking for ways to screw over their customers, and so on.

I don't recall this much effort to debunk...

[argStyopa]

...the famed "Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy" in 1998?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

Conspiracy?

[kqc7011]

JournoList. Now without the autocorrect for journalist.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[phantomfive]

It always entertains me that one of the candidates actually wasn't born in the US (John McCain) and no one complained about that.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[nasch]

Sure took him a long time to spit out that forged document. If it was legit, it would have been immediately released.

Is that how you know it's forged, or is there some other way you've been able to discern this?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[CanHasDIY]

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

You know, the really sad part is that since his mother is a known American citizen, none of that "where was he born" nonsense ever mattered in the slightest; yet, socially, we allowed the mass media to convince us that it did.

Also, make lots of friends

[Solandri]

And not just friends who think like you do. Get out of your comfort zone, away from your echo chamber. Find something in common with people who are different from you. Play racquetball at the gym with that liberal hippie neighbor. Go on camping trips with the conservative guy from work. Go rock climbing with your old roommate's gay cousin. Talk with them, get to know them, become friends with them.

Once you do that, you start to learn that we all have more in common with each other than differences. A lot of the propaganda will then become transparent - the usual MO is to dehumanize the "enemy" prior to tearing them down. But if you see, no, if you know those people are human, it's impossible to dehumanize them.

Re:Also, make lots of friends

[gweihir]

Anybody that tries this is already a critical thinker. A vast majority of Republicans do want a simple truth and they do not care whether it is faked or wrong as long as they can believe in it. Incidentally, a lot of Democrats are not much better.

The problem with this type of advice is that it does not reach the people that need it.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[fahrbot-bot]

Noting that (sigh), even as of December 2017, people still believe Obama was born in Kenya

You know, the really sad part is that since his mother is a known American citizen, none of that "where was he born" nonsense ever mattered in the slightest; yet, socially, we allowed the mass media to convince us that it did.

True and I imagine the whole "he was born in Kenya" thing was/is actually code for "he's black" - which, if so, is, quite frankly, stupid - but let's not overestimate people...

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[ScentCone]

No, not that. You're the one focused on that detail, because you're fascinated by it. You might want to talk that out with a grown up.

The rational people, though, ARE focused on the web of connections between Fusion GPS, Clinton-machine money, employees at DoJ/FBI (and their spouses), and messages involving some of those folks who are on the record as partisan Clinton supporters and who are plainly talking about what they can do to prevent Trump from becoming president. Your own obsession with fabricated hooker stories is your own thing.

Re:Yeah. Trust the media!

[serviscope_minor]

In North Korea, China, Russia, Turkey, Syria, Sweden, Iran, Germany what could go wrong?!

Sweden and Germany rank substantially better at press freedoms than the US:

https://rsf.org/en/ranking_tab...

It's facile to put them in the same grouping as North Korea and so on.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[SuperKendall]

No citation needed for that one though?

No because everyone has the countless cycle of Democrats claiming there is a Russia collusion on the news.

I have helpfully provided many links for you as you appear too be too stupid to have ever followed the news, or to use Google. You poor bastard. Can't keep helping you though so you are on your own from here.

Re:There are way more "conspiratorial thinkers" at

[CanHasDIY]

You mean other than the 2 sources he already cited, one of which being CNN.com?

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[dinfinity]

and they'll fade away on their own

Or they elect the president of the United States of America.
Because Pizzagate. And Benghazi. And Kenya. And communism.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[ScentCone]

His father was not a citizen. The constitution requires a "natural born citizen" to be president. The debate surrounds whether or not (as it plainly did, once) require both parents to be natural citizens. It was intended to reduce the prospects of foreign influence/loyalty. The framers recognized how often European leadership was influenced by family ties to foreign governments.

Re:informed electorate

[cascadingstylesheet]

Examples: Look at the masses of people at Trump rallies chanting "Lock her up!" about someone who has not been convicted of any crimes*.

She committed a crime; it's illegal for her to do what she did running confidential information through her private email server.

Yes, people don't like it when high profile people commit crimes and get away with it. That's "conspiracy theory"?

Re:informed electorate

[tbannist]

All the best information I can get, says that the "crime" that she committed isn't really. As I understand it, the usual result for someone who made a similar error would be a lecture and maybe a weekend refresher course on the proper handling of classified materials, which is why the FBI did not recommend charges be laid. Because the harshest penalty they could realistically hope for would be a minor fine.

All news orgs being partisan hacks doesnt help.

[brainchill]

Whether you're talking about swinging left or swinging right it's very difficult for people to believe their news sources when they have proven over and over again to be partisan hacks. As an example, while there was looting and rioting in St Louis earlier this year to the point that the national guard was deployed for several days to keep the peace it never made the front page of cnn.com because they were too laser focused on destroying Trump by making front page news out of every single tweet that he wrote. If we want to get to a place where the news organizations are trusted by people gain, whether left or right, we have to get to a point where they objectively report facts rather than where our news organizations are subscribed to one set of political ideologies and use that to influence what comes out of their news broadcasts.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AlanBDee]

I have long believed that some people find a game in seeing how many people they can deceive. Points for every person convinced and extra points if it's especially ridiculous; e.g. the flat earth society.

Re: Not all conspiracies are created equal

[Anonymous Coward]

The debate surrounds whether or not (as it plainly did, once) require both parents to be natural citizens

No, that's wasn't "the debate". The debate was whether or not he was actually born in Hawaii, whether his birth certificate was falsified, and other nonsense. Heroes like Arpaio were supposed to be hot on that case. So don't gaslight us with this shit about what "the debate" was all about. I think the folks around remember what people said when the topic was debated, and it wasn't this pseudo-intellectual hand-wavery about what legal guidelines USED to be followed for citizenship.

There wasn't a "debate" over the citizenship of his father, and there wasn't a "debate" over whether his father's lack of citizenship meant Obama wasn't a citizen. These weren't part of the narrative because they are all part of settled law.

Re:Not all conspiracies are created equal

[AK Marc]

Didn't seem to bother the people when a Canadian-Cuban was running, though Eddie Munster didn't win the nomination.