The media landscape of the past few years has been marked by a couple of significant trends.  One is the rise of deliberate fake news operations that aim to distort the agenda, whilst the second is the rise in partisan coverage that could aptly be described as biased in one direction or another.

Of course, politicians such as Donald Trump are more than happy to brand any outlet that disagrees with him as ‘fake news’, but are readers similarly happy to blur those boundaries?  A new study from Ohio State University suggests not, but that credibility remains a hugely valuable commodity.

This is an important distinction, as previous work has suggested that credibility is generally a combination of expertise and trustworthiness, but if bias is also a key factor then being seen to be excessively partisan can severely hamper your credibility.

“I use the example of grandparents,” the author explains.  “Most everyone agrees that grandparents are honest. But if Grandma says that her grandson Johnny is the best soccer player around, most people will smile politely but not believe her. She’s obviously biased.”

Partisan coverage

The research consisted of a number of experiments that aimed to test the nature of fake news and credibility of sources.  For instance, in one, volunteers were asked to read a conversation between aid workers on how they should allocate scarce resources to deal with an Ebola outbreak.  In the transcript, the aid workers were described as very highly trained, but in one version of the transcript, the workers had previously operated in an area they advocated sending resources to, and in another version this information was omitted.

After reading the transcript, the volunteers did indeed appear to discount the credibility of the workers who were believed to be bias, despite their apparent trustworthiness and expertise.

While bias can damage credibility however, this should not be taken to mean that it has the same consequences as inherent untrustworthiness.

“In the case of biased, but honest sources, the information they present might only support one side of the issue, but at least people can treat the information as useful for understanding that side,” the author explains.  “Untrustworthy sources may never be that useful.”

Changing sides

The degree of balance in the coverage can also play a part, as the researchers found that untrustworthy sources can change their stance on a subject and it makes little difference to their persuasiveness (in either the positive or negative sense).

When trusted, yet partisan, sources change their stance however, the impact is more profound.  In such an instance, it appears to have a big impact on shifting people’s perceptions, as they assume there must be something compelling to prompt the change of stance.

Of course, such a shift doesn’t appear to happen all that often in the real world, but the study does nonetheless provide an interesting new angle on the differences between partisan and fake news, and how people perceive the two very differently.