All the President’s Tweets: Effects of Exposure to Trump’s “Fake News” Accusations on Perceptions of Journalists, News Stories, and Issue Evaluation

Abstract

The label “fake news” was used in 2016 to describe disinformation messages disseminated during the 2016 US Presidential campaign, particularly such messages on social media sites, but the term was quickly co-opted by President Donald Trump and his administration for use as a general epithet to discredit journalistic coverage critical of the White House. Across two preregistered experimental designs, we empirically examine the effect that President Trump’s tweets containing “fake news” accusations toward journalists have on how audiences perceive news stories. Our first study showed no direct effect of exposure to “fake news” tweets on outcomes. In our second study, we found users who read more fake news tweets rated a story about Hurricane Maria victims and its author as more credible, showed greater transportation into the story, experienced higher levels of meaningful affect, indicated more favorable views toward providing more aid to Puerto Ricans, and had greater intentions to consume more news in the future.