Contrary to popular narratives, it is not clear whether using social media for news increases belief in political misinformation. Several of the most methodologically sound studies find small to nonexistent effects. However, extant research is limited by focusing on few platforms (usually Facebook, Twitter or YouTube) and is heavily U.S. centered. This leaves open the possibility that other platforms, such as those that rely on visual communication (e.g., Instagram) or are tailored to strong-tie network communication (e.g., WhatsApp), are more influential. Furthermore, the few studies conducted in other countries suggest that social media use increases political misperceptions. Still, these works use cross-sectional designs, which are ill suited to dealing with omitted variable bias and temporal ordering of processes. Using a two-wave survey fielded in Mexico during the 2021 midterm elections (N = 596), we estimate the relationship between frequency of news exposure on Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram and WhatsApp, and belief in political misinformation, while controlling for both time-invariant and time-dependent individual differences. In contrast to political discussion, information literacy and digital skills, none of the social platforms analyzed exhibits a significant association with misinformed beliefs. We also tested for possible indirect, moderated, and reciprocal relationships, but none of these analyses yielded a statistically significant result. We conclude that the study is consistent with the “minimal media effects” paradigm, which suggests that efforts to address misinformation need to go beyond social platforms.

中文翻译：

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墨西哥的社交媒体和对错误信息的信仰：一个最大恐慌，最小影响的案例？

与流行的说法相反，尚不清楚使用社交媒体获取新闻是否会增加人们对政治错误信息的信任。一些方法学上最合理的研究发现效果很小甚至不存在。然而，现有研究受限于少数平台（通常是 Facebook、Twitter 或 YouTube），并且主要以美国为中心。这使得其他平台（例如依赖视觉通信的平台（例如 Instagram）或专为强联系网络通信（例如 WhatsApp）量身定制的平台）可能更具影响力。此外，在其他国家进行的少数研究表明，社交媒体的使用会增加政治误解。尽管如此，这些作品使用横截面设计，这不适合处理遗漏的变量偏差和过程的时间排序。使用在 2021 年中期选举期间在墨西哥进行的两波调查（N = 596），我们估计了 Facebook、Twitter、YouTube、Instagram 和 WhatsApp 上的新闻曝光频率与对政治错误信息的信念之间的关系，同时控制了两者不随时间变化和随时间变化的个体差异。与政治讨论、信息素养和数字技能相比，所分析的社交平台都没有表现出与错误信念的显着关联。我们还测试了可能的间接、调节和互惠关系，但这些分析都没有产生具有统计学意义的结果。我们得出结论，该研究与“最小媒体影响”范式一致，这表明解决错误信息的努力需要超越社交平台。