UC San Diego

Americans are increasingly concerned about where we learn about politics. The reality is that many Americans learn about politics from conversations with friends and family. But how is information transmitted by our peers different from information communicated by the media? More importantly, what are the consequences of relying on our peers for information about politics relative to seeking information from professional news outlets? In the face of fake news, misinformation, and polarization, this dissertation focuses on understanding the content and consequences of interpersonal political communication. Ultimately, I argue that reliance on social information leads to negative informational and attitudinal outcomes, while opening the door for increased political engagement.

Chapter 1 serves as an introduction that outlines my theory about why (and how) information becomes distorted through social transmission and why this could affect political behavior. Chapter 2 introduces a research design called a telephone game experiment that allows researchers to examine how individuals summarize information from the news and how it changes as it flows through communication networks. A subsequent version of this chapter has been published in the Journal of Politics. Chapter 3 uses the design developed in Chapter 2 to examine information transmission about economic performance and investigate the consequences of exposure to a news article or a social summary of that article. The results suggest that individuals can learn just as much from their peers as they can from a news article if they receive information from someone who is more knowledgeable than they are and is a copartisan. However, the information sources lead to divergent patterns in attitudes, such that partisan bias in the social information could influence subjective evaluations. A subsequent version of this chapter is forthcoming in the American Political Science Review.

Chapter 4 uses data from two nationally representative surveys to show that individuals who report relying on conversations with others for information about politics are more likely to believe political rumors. Chapter 5 provides a brief conclusion to the dissertation, highlighting important avenues for future research.