A Quick Review of Uninformed Voters and Fake News

            Two elements that are selected for review are uninformed voters and the role of the media, including fake news.  This paper will consider their effects and consequences on democracy.  Several criteria can be scrutinized to determine if a democracy is “good.”  Among these are an informed electorate, free and fair elections with equal participation, a choice among political parties, and access to more than one source of information, which would lead to a more informed electorate.  Uninformed voters and the prevalence of fake news, especially within social media platforms, both have an impact on these criteria, which will be examined.

            An informed electorate is important within a democracy so that citizens’ preferences are translated into applicable public policy.  If the electorate is uninformed, it can result in unreasonable demands through distorted public opinion and a failure to provide policy that is commensurate with the electorate’s true preferences.  Fowler and Margolis examined the impact of uninformed voters within the US political system to determine the scope of this issue.[1]  They concluded that uninformed voters can have a significant impact on both elections and resulting policy decisions.  They found that many citizens did not understand the platforms of the different political parties and where they stand on various economic and social issues.  This study demonstrated that uninformed citizens tended to identify with the party that did not align with their personal preferences.  In their study, they determined that many uninformed voters shifted from the Republican party to the Democratic party.

            Another aspect of uninformed voters is the effect that special interest groups have upon them.  Wegenast postulates that special interest groups have a substantial influence upon policy decisions in the US, and they also have significant sway over uninformed voters.[2]  This leads to a political arena where a candidate can essentially ‘buy’ an election by devoting money and resources to special interest groups who gain the support of the uninformed voter.  Conversely, Wegenast found that as voters become more informed, the influence of special interest groups waned. 

            Fake news contributes to not only uninformed voters but misinformed voters as well.  When citizens are constantly bombarded with false information that is designed to elicit an emotional reaction and do not have the wherewithal to fact-check what they’ve read, the electorate becomes compromised.  Beyond simply being uninformed, citizens are voting based on memes they see on the internet or misleading political ads, which can further skew an election outcome.  Just Facts, a non-profit research and educational institute, conducted a nationwide poll to examine the issue of misinformation among voters.[3]  They polled 500 people who specifically said they vote in most elections and asked them questions about their political inclinations and knowledge of public policy.  Overall, all voters answered on average only 39% of the questions correctly, which demonstrates that they were largely uninformed or misinformed.  When breaking this down into sub-groups, Democrats answered 30% correctly, while Republicans answered 45% correctly.  Undecided voters and independent voters answered 39% and 41% respectively.

Allcott and Gengzkow examined the role of social media and fake news in the 2016 election.[4]  They determined that a single individual with no reputation can reach as many readers as reputable news sources.  Furthermore, web browsing data demonstrated that fake news sites get significant referrals from social media sites, like Facebook, whereas the same was not true for legitimate news sites.  This points to a large number of social media users garnering news from unreliable sources.  Additionally, this creates an environment where news coverage becomes a highly contested field where getting the story out has become more important than accuracy.

            Another criterion for a good democracy is the availability of information from multiple sources.  However, in the modern world, an individual is bombarded with so much information that it is difficult to separate the signal from the noise.  Additionally, much of the media no longer even purports to be unbiased, with the American media having an overwhelming Democrat Party prejudice.  Indeed, one example is when Rachel Maddow of MSNBC declared that, “You’re awake by the way, you aren’t having a terrible nightmare.  Also, you’re not dead and you haven’t gone to Hell,” after Trump won the 2016 election.[5]  Another example is Donna Brazile, a CNN political analyst, who compromised the integrity of a presidential debate by giving Hillary Clinton debate questions so she would not be “blindsided.”[6]

An additional aspect of the media and fake news is that the line between what constitutes fake news and reputable news is blurring, with news sources such as CNN reporting falsely.  For example, CNN initially reported on December 8 that Donald Trump Jr. was granted access to Wikileaks documents on September 4, 2016, a full 10 days prior to the documents being made public.[7]  The implication was that the Trump campaign had access to Wikileak information through a secret contact that gave them access to “stolen documents.”  CNN has since corrected their story after the Washington Post revealed that the date Trump Jr. received the documents was on September 14, a day after they had been made public.[8]  However, how many people would be swayed by the initial report and miss the correction, especially if it confirms their existing bias? 

In conclusion, it is difficult to wade the political waters without training.  An ordinary citizen does not have access to the same level of information that a political scientist does when ameliorating or disseminating the information from multiple sources.  Even those in the electorate who desire objective information about political processes have the difficulty of navigating the quagmire of bias and misinformation.  With knowledge, the steps to a better democracy have clarity and become easier.  One way for this to happen in an ideal world would be for the media to voluntarily take up the mantle of objectivity once again.  Freedom of the press is integral to America and democracy, but the media must have culpability for publishing erroneous or egregious reports.

             Bibliography

Agresti, James D. "Poll Reveals Voters Misinformed about Key Issues." Just Facts. June 08, 2016. Accessed December 08, 2017. http://www.justfactsdaily.com/poll-reveals-voters-misinformed-about-key-issues/.

Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election." Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2017): 211-36. Accessed December 8, 2017. doi:10.3386/w23089.

Borchers, Callum. "Analysis | CNN Just Armed Trump with New Ammunition to Launch Another ‘fake News’ Attack." The Washington Post. December 08, 2017. Accessed December 08, 2017. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/12/08/cnn-just-armed-trump-with-new-ammunition-to-launch-another-fake-news-attack/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.087e15b16ff3.

Fowler, Anthony, and Michele Margolis. "The Political Consequences of Uninformed Voters." Electoral Studies 34 (2014): 100-10. doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.009.

Graham, David A. "Donna Brazile's Curious Account of the 2016 Election." The Atlantic. November 02, 2017. Accessed December 08, 2017. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/donna-braziles-curious-account-of-the-2016-election/544778/.

Lostwoodsfilms. "Rachel Maddow - Reaction on Election 2016." YouTube. November 09, 2016. Accessed December 08, 2017. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabloPDPtLg.

Raju, Manu, and Jeremy Herb. "Email Shows Effort to Give Docs to Trump Camp." CNN. December 08, 2017. Accessed December 08, 2017. http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/email-effort-give-trump-campaign-wikileaks-documents/index.html.

Wegenast, Tim. "Uninformed Voters for Sale: Electoral Competition, Information and Interest Groups in the US." Kyklos 63, no. 2 (2010): 271-300. doi:10.1111/j.1467-6435.2010.00473.x.

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[1] Anthony Fowler and Michele Margolis, "The Political Consequences of Uninformed Voters," Electoral Studies 34 (2014), doi:10.1016/j.electstud.2013.09.009.

[2] Tim Wegenast, "Uninformed Voters for Sale: Electoral Competition, Information and Interest Groups in the US," Kyklos 63, no. 2 (2010), doi:10.1111/j.1467-6435.2010.00473.x.

[3] James D. Agresti, "Poll Reveals Voters Misinformed about Key Issues," Just Facts, June 08, 2016, accessed December 08, 2017, http://www.justfactsdaily.com/poll-reveals-voters-misinformed-about-key-issues/.

[4] Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives 31, no. 2 (2017), accessed December 8, 2017, doi:10.3386/w23089.

[5] Lostwoodsfilms, "Rachel Maddow - Reaction on Election 2016," YouTube, November 09, 2016, accessed December 08, 2017, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LabloPDPtLg.

[6] David A. Graham, "Donna Brazile's Curious Account of the 2016 Election," The Atlantic, November 02, 2017, accessed December 08, 2017, https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/donna-braziles-curious-account-of-the-2016-election/544778/.

[7] Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb, "Email Shows Effort to Give Docs to Trump Camp," CNN, December 08, 2017, accessed December 08, 2017, http://www.cnn.com/2017/12/08/politics/email-effort-give-trump-campaign-wikileaks-documents/index.html.

[8] Callum Borchers, "Analysis | CNN Just Armed Trump with New Ammunition to Launch Another ‘fake News’ Attack," The Washington Post, December 08, 2017, accessed December 08, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2017/12/08/cnn-just-armed-trump-with-new-ammunition-to-launch-another-fake-news-attack/?tid=sm_fb&utm_term=.087e15b16ff3.