Journal article
Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories: Exploring Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC Effects on People’s Conspiracy Mentality
Journalism & mass communication quarterly, Vol.101(4), pp.889-910
12/2024
DOI: 10.1177/10776990231171929
Abstract
Research on the origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories has skyrocketed. Studies reveal how individual antecedents such as people’s personality traits, intrinsic motivations, and broad social-psychological processes explain this phenomenon. Fewer studies, however, explored the role of cable news exposure. This study casts a new light on how exposure to Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC relate to people’s levels of general conspiracy mentality fueled by the belief in “secret-plotting orchestrated by powerful others.” Results from K-mean cluster algorithms, ordinary least squares (OLS) causal-autoregressive regressions, and cross-lagged panel structural equation model tests show Fox News exposure fosters people’s conspiracy mentality.
Details
- Title: Subtitle
- Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories: Exploring Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC Effects on People’s Conspiracy Mentality
- Creators
- Homero Gil de Zúñiga - Universidad de SalamancaRebecca Scheffauer - Universidad de SalamancaBingbing Zhang - Universidad de Salamanca
- Resource Type
- Journal article
- Publication Details
- Journalism & mass communication quarterly, Vol.101(4), pp.889-910
- DOI
- 10.1177/10776990231171929
- ISSN
- 1077-6990
- eISSN
- 2161-430X
- Grant note
- name: Spanish National Research Agency’s Program for the Generation of Knowledge and the Scientific and Technological Strengthening Research + Development Grant, award: PID2020-115562GB-I00
- Language
- English
- Electronic publication date
- 05/16/2023
- Date published
- 12/2024
- Academic Unit
- School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Center for Social Science Innovation
- Record Identifier
- 9984446277402771
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