COLUMBIA JOURNALISM REVIEW – 01/10/2019
Michelle A. Amazeen and Erik P. Bucy
FOLLOWING THE 2016 ELECTION—and the tsunami of digital disinformation it had loosed upon the world—we surveyed more than eighteen hundred people about their knowledge of news gathering and reporting procedures: everything from the placement of editorials in mainstream outlets to the purpose of news anchors and press releases. Procedural news knowledge is dispersed; some people know more than others about actual news practices. The role such knowledge plays in assessing suspect content is clear: according to our responses, the more people know about the media, the better they are able to identify and resist online disinformation efforts, including fabricated headlines and covert advertising attempts. As we conclude in our recently published study, citizens who have a developed understanding of how news is constructed and how mainstream medi.