Research Seminars

Despite widespread concern amongst both citizens and policymakers, the evidence as to the causal effect of far-right misinformation on voting is mixed. To explore the effect of misinformation on voting, we conducted an online experimental survey (N = 3,000) during the 2022 French presidential election. Participants were exposed to misinformation in a randomly assigned treatment. Importantly, we vary the time at which participants are exposed to misinformation: after the elicitation of their political attitude in the first experimental condition, before in the second one. In comparison to the baseline with no exposure to misinformation, this allows us to measure the effect of misinformation on both voting intentions and political attitudes. Our results are threefold. First, we show that the causal effect of exposure to misinformation is small in magnitude and, if anything, tends to move voters away from far left (and to a lesser extent, far right ones) candidates in favor of centrist candidates. Second, political attitudes of voters remain unchanged after exposure to fake news. And third, the perceived credibility of extreme candidates tends to decrease after exposure to fake news. 

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