"This study's findings are encouraging regarding both the potential effectiveness of fact checking and the importance of veracity to voters," they said. Unlike earlier studies, the false claims outnumbered the true, allowing researchers to measures whether a pattern of debunked false claims had a longer-term impact on the politician's appeal. But for both sides "corrections strongly reduced myth beliefs" and participants' support for politicians "did decline" even if participants' political views did not change. The "results suggest that fact checking could serve as a genuine threat to the electability of politicians who regularly make false statements." "Our results suggest that the impact of politicians' false statements on the level of support they receive may differ between the USA and Australia," they said.

Source: Bangkok Post December 21, 2018 06:33 UTC