Communicating Public Opinion in Post-Fact Politics: Biased Processing of Public Opinion Reports and Potential Journalistic Correctives

Abstract

People rely on polls and other representations of public opinion in the media to update their political cognitions and behaviors. However, individuals’ preexisting beliefs can color how they perceive opinion reports, and lead them to cherry-pick evidence that is congenial when presented with multiple options. Such biases result in distorted perceptions of public opinion, declining trust in journalism, and political polarization. Moreover, in today’s unprecedentedly polarized and contentious information environment, individuals often encounter contradictory messages from digital data-journalism and numerical evidence is regularly critiqued, fact-checked, or debunked on reasonable or unreasonable grounds. In such a cacophonous context, individuals’ biases in information processing might amplify. Through three large national survey experiments and one smaller study, this dissertation examines how news consumers’ attributes, the content of opinion reports and patterns of media coverage can trigger or mitigate biases in public perceptions. In the first part, I document that individuals process reports of public opinion in biased ways - when they evaluate issue polls, election polls in competitive contexts, and diverse metrics of public opinion. I also show that their levels of knowledge and education moderate the extent of these biases. In the second part, I find that the corrective potential of three journalistic remedies to reduce these biases are minimal and contingent upon individuals’ education levels. I discuss implications for political polarization, trust in the press and representatives, and democratic politics at large.