"Outlet Choice and Topical Attention Limit the Reach of Content Challenging Election Fraud Claims," Brendan Nyhan, Dartmouth College
This event has passed.
Event Time
Monday, September 28, 2026
Noon to 1:15 PM
Open to the Yale community and invited scholars.
Location
Evans Hall
2210 Allison Classroom
165 Whitney Avenue New Haven, CT 06511
Speaker
Brendan Nyhan, James O. Freedman Presidential Professor; Professor of Government, Dartmouth College
Description
Computational Social Science Workshop
Abstract
If exposure to corrective information reduces false beliefs, why are misperceptions like the 2020 U.S. election fraud myth so persistent? One explanation is selective exposure to pro-attitudinal claims, but we show that most supporters of Donald Trump encountered little fraud-related content around the 2020 and 2022 elections. Instead, web browsing data show a pattern of differential non-exposure among Trump supporters, who were less likely than Biden supporters to see content challenging fraud claims (a pattern we also find using TV and social media data from 2020). These findings highlight the difficulty of reaching vulnerable audiences to correct misinformation.
Biography
Brendan Nyhan is the James O. Freedman Presidential Professor in the Department of Government at Dartmouth College. Nyhan, a former professor of public policy at the University of Michigan, is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and a former Guggenheim Fellow and Carnegie Fellow. He is co-director of Bright Line Watch, a watchdog monitoring the status of American democracy; a former contributor to The Upshot at The New York Times; co-founder of Spinsanity, a nonpartisan fact-checker that was syndicated in the Philadelphia Inquirer; and co-author of All the President's Spin, a New York Times bestseller.
