The recent surge of false information accompanying the Russian invasion of Ukraine has re-emphasized the need for interventions to counteract disinformation. While fact-checking is a widely used intervention, we know little about citizen motivations to read fact-checks. We tested theoretical predictions related to accuracy-motivated goals (i.e., seeking to know the truth) versus directionally-motivated goals (i.e., seeking to confirm existing beliefs) by analyzing original survey data ( n = 19,037) collected in early April to late May 2022 in nineteen countries, namely Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, UK, and USA. Survey participants read ten statements about the Russian war in Ukraine and could opt to see fact-checks for each of these statements. Results of mixed models for three-level hierarchical data (level 1: statements, level 2: individuals, and level 3: countries) showed that accuracy motivations were better explanations than directional motivations for the decision to read fact-checks about the Russian war in Ukraine.

Political entertainment programs have gained worldwide popularity, prompting research on their effects. One area of interest has been whether this media programming has an impact upon political efficacy. However, existing literature has only examined the impact of a limited number of programs, has failed to consider the simultaneous influence of different genres, and has focused primarily on the US. To address these limitations, we conducted a comparative survey in 18 democracies in 2022, with a sample size of N = 26,000. The findings revealed that viewers of political talk shows exhibited higher levels of both external and internal political efficacy in most countries. Additionally, frequent exposure to political comedy news or satire was positively related to internal political efficacy in certain countries. Finally, the consumption of fictional political dramas was also linked to political efficacy, but only in a few countries.

This chapter investigates the relation between a voter’s policy incongruence and resentment. Incongruence refers to the mismatch between voters’ and parties’ preferences: we hypothesize that incongruence will be positively related to resentment. The more incongruent voters are with either their own preferred party (egotropic incongruence) or the whole party system (sociotropic incongruence), the less likely voters can expect policy that aligns with their preferences, and thus benefits them. Such incongruence likely fosters resentment. We further hypothesize that the relation between incongruence and resentment is moderated by voters’ party issue positions knowledge. Using the 2019 RepResent survey data, we find no support for the hypothesized relation between incongruence and resentment. Rather, we find strong indications that citizens’ party position knowledge moderates the relation between incongruence and resentment. This indicates that it does not just matter that citizens are incongruent with their preferred party and/or the party system, but also that they know they are incongruent.

Recent studies have shown that political information directly associated with a real-world leader tends to generate more (affective) polarization compared to similar information tied to a more impersonal source, such as a political party. The phenomenon is explained by the catalyzing role of leaders in the public’s inclination to maximize distinctiveness with outgroups. Leaders are used as stereotypical yardsticks based on their structural position and external visibility in (negative) campaigns. We link the preceding findings from the source cue literature to the preferential voting literature because a vote for a candidate or the party as a whole also is a source cue proxy. Concretely, we test whether voters casting a preference vote for an electoral leader are more affectively polarized than party voters by relying on the Belgian RepResent panel survey for the last parliamentary elections of 2019. This context provides an adequate electoral setting and adequate indicators to measure affective polarization and to distinguish (centralized) preference voters and party voters. Our findings show that (centralized) preference voters are indeed more affectively polarized and this can primarily be explained by a short(er)-term negative campaigning mechanism.

In information environments characterized by institutional distrust, fragmentation and the widespread dissemination of conspiracies and disinformation, citizens perceive misinformation as a salient and threatening issue. Especially amidst disruptive events and crises, news users are likely to believe that information is inaccurate or deceptive. Using an original 19-country comparative survey study across diverse regions in the world (N = 19,037), we find that news users are likely to regard information on the Russian war in Ukraine as false. They are more likely to attribute false information to deliberative deception than to a lack of access to the war area or inaccurate expert knowledge. Russian sources are substantially more likely to be blamed for falsehoods than Ukrainian or Western sources - but these attribution biases depend on a country's position on the war. Our findings reveal that people mostly believe that falsehoods are intended to deceive them, and selectively associate misinformation with the opposed camp.

Despite increasing academic attention, several questions about news literacy messages (NLM) remain unanswered. First, it remains unclear how differences in the framing of the NLMs may influence their effectiveness. Second, we still know little about how NLMs work and, in particular, whether people also adopt the recommendations they are given. To answer these questions, this study conducts an experiment in the Netherlands and Belgium, where we manipulate the frames of the NLM, comparing interventions using a “fake news” frame with those using a “reliable news” frame or a mix of the two. We also manipulate elements in the false news article that participants have to evaluate afterwards. Our findings show that all three types of NLMs are effective in making people resilient to misinformation, without resulting in a general decrease in trust in accurate news (=spill-over effect). In particular, news literacy media messages with a “mixed” frame are effective, as they make people critical toward false news articles, and also result in a higher perceived accuracy of accurate news articles. Additionally, the findings provide suggestive evidence that NLMs work, at least partly, because participants also adopt (some) of the recommendations being given.

It can be difficult for citizens to discern factually accurate information from mis- and disinformation. Particularly in the context of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the omnipresence of counterfactual narratives, propaganda, and partisan content may increase the likelihood that citizens select and accept mis -or disinformation. To assess citizens’ performance in discerning false statements from factually accurate information on the war, we utilized original survey data across 19 countries (N = 19,037) with soft quotas for age, education, and gender to approximate population characteristics. Our main findings indicate that people perform relatively well in discerning factually accurate information from false statements and that self-perceived media literacy and the need for cognition corresponds with better performance. Stronger pro-Russia views on the war correspond with a lower performance in misinformation detection, whereas anti-Russia attitudes are associated with better evaluations of the statements’ truthfulness. We find little cross-country variation in these patterns. As a key implication, we show that discernment between factually accurate information and mis- or disinformation is driven by both accuracy and partisan motivation and that these effects are similar across most different national contexts.

Despite increasing academic attention, several questions about fact-checking remain unanswered. First, it remains unclear to what extent fact-checks are effective across different political and media contexts. Second, we know little on whether features of the fact-check itself influence its success. Conducting an experiment in 16 European countries, this study aims to fill these gaps by examining two features of fact-checks that may affect their success: whether fact-checks include the political source of the misinformation, and the source of the fact-check itself. We find that fact-checks are successful in debunking misperceptions. Moreover, this debunking effect is consistent across countries. Looking at features of fact-checks, we find no indication that it matters whether fact-checks include the political source of the misinformation claim. Comparing fact-checks from independent organizations with those from public broadcasters, we do find, however, that who the fact-checker is matters, especially in combination with trust in this source.

The present research note examines how design features of consent forms impact response rates, privacy concerns, and respondents' knowledge of their rights. The 2018 implementation of the General Data Protection Regulation, also known as General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), has triggered widespread concern in the scientific community across the European Union. The concern is that the GDPR requirements for the processing of personal data may introduce severe limitations on certain types of research. A key requirement of the GDPR is that researchers must obtain informed consent from individuals whose personal data will be processed as part of the research. Consent must be freely given, specific, informed, unambiguous, and given actively via a clear affirmative action. However, in practice, there is a wide variation in the interpretation and implementation of the GDPR. Therefore, this study aims to investigate how to ensure informed consent without compromising the needs of academic research. To do so, we fielded a survey experiment with a 2 x 2 x 2 between-subjects design, varying key dimensions of the survey consent form. The results of this study document the advantages of using condensed information and in-text legal references (as opposed to a hyperlink).

Western societies are increasingly facing a challenge of affective polarization; a trend where citizens develop a strong affective connection toward their own political side, while increasingly disliking and feeling animosity toward people with opposing political allegiances. One factor that is often seen as contributing to this growing trend are social media, particularly Facebook. However, so far, research that examines the relation between social media use and affective polarization is still scarce, and the studies that exist are inconclusive and often focus on two-party systems. Using data from a panel survey conducted around the 2019 elections in Flanders, this study sets out to investigate to what extent Facebook (news) use relates to affective polarization, specifically in the context of a multi-party system. We find evidence that Facebook news use is indeed associated with higher levels of affective polarization and that citizens who rely on Facebook for their news consumption become more affectively polarized over the span of an electoral campaign than those who relied on other media channels. Moreover, we demonstrate that this relationship exists because Facebook news relates both to increased positive feelings toward the in-group, and increased hostile feelings toward the out-group, although the latter to a lesser extent.

This research note presents the RepResent Belgian Panel (RBP). The RBP is a voter panel survey consisting of four waves fielded to a sample of voters in Belgium around the May 2019 federal, regional, and European elections in Belgium. It provides unique data on about 250 variables for a quota sample of the same respondents, pre-2019 elections ( N = 7351), post-2019 elections ( N = 3909), one year after the elections ( N = 1996), and 2 years after the elections ( N = 1119). The RBP panel dataset was designed to analyse voters’ political attitudes and behaviours, notably on different dimensions of democratic representation, and with a specific focus on democratic resentment (e.g. citizens’ attitudes towards democracy such as distrust and alienation, but also behaviours such as abstention, protest, or voting for anti-establishment parties). Its longitudinal structure allows to explore the political dynamics at play in Belgium throughout the lengthy government formation process. Finally, the last two waves of the RBP were fielded during the Covid-19 pandemic, allowing to explore public opinion before and during this global crisis. The RBP should be of interest to scholars of public opinion and electoral studies.

Within many countries, voters not only have to cast a vote for a political party, but also have the option to select (a) candidate(s) within that party, a so-called preferential vote. Recent studies indicate that several factors influence the success of candidates within this intra-party competition, such as ballot list position, political experience, and socio-demographic characteristics. However, it has not yet been investigated whether ideology also matters for intra-party success. This study investigates the role of the ideological position of candidates within their party on the share of preferential votes they obtain. Can candidates win preferential votes by taking ideological niche positions within the party? To investigate this question, the study uses data from a candidate survey conducted during the 2014 Belgian elections in which candidates were asked to position themselves ideologically. The results of this study indicate that ideology does not play a strong role within the intra-party competition.

The growing dissemination of conspiracy theories on social media has challenged the well-being of societies. This study aims to understand why individuals would engage with conspiracy theories and what role specific beliefs, but also individual factors such as personality traits play. To answer these questions, we conducted surveys in six countries (Belgium, Switzerland, Germany, France, the UK and the U.S.) and investigate three motivations (conviction, entertainment and reaction provocation) behind the dissemination of conspiracy content on social media. Our findings demonstrate that across issues, individuals who indicated they would engage with conspiracy theories do it mainly because they are convinced by the message. Political orientation and issue attitudes proof to be connected to individual engagement with conspiracy theories out of conviction, while dark personality traits such as narcissism and psychopathy are valid predictors for why individuals would disseminate conspiracy theories out of entertainment reasons or to provoke reactions.

When citizens perceive news coverage as ideologically slanted, their crucial trust in the (traditional) news media decreases. Research on the so-called hostile media phenomenon indeed shows that an alarming number of people consider news coverage as disadvantaging their own political preferences and favoring opposing (partisan) views. However, most of this research is conducted in an experimental setting, and we do not know how this works in the real world, where citizens predominantly consume news from media outlets they trust and perceive as ideologically like-minded. By questioning Belgian citizens about their perceptions of partisan bias in their preferred news outlet, this study shows that the hostile media phenomenon also holds in a least likely context; even content produced by "friendly" news sources is seen as ideologically slanted, potentially contributing to citizens' general distrust in the news media. Moreover, we find that especially right-wing citizens and strong partisans believe their news outlet disadvantages their preferred party.

This study investigates to what extent affective polarization, and more specifically hostility towards opposing party supporters, finds its roots in ideological differences. We look into the way out-groups are constructed when there are more than two political parties, and at the role of ideology in this process. Hereby we position ourselves in the discussion between those who argue that affective polarization finds its root more strongly in group attachments vs. those who argue that it is mostly rooted in ideological differences. We conduct our study in the context of the highly fragmented multi-party system of Belgium which enables us to analytically disentangle party label cues from ideological distance. Our findings demonstrate that affective polarization is largely rooted in ideological differences between party electorates in Belgium. Additionally, we find that this particularly holds for citizens who are more ideologically invested, namely those with higher political interest and more extreme ideological views.

Using a survey experiment in Belgium, this study investigates to what extent media criticism voiced by political elites affects citizens' media perceptions. In the experiment, citizens are exposed to tweets in which political parties attack the public broadcast for (1) being ideologically slanted and (2) being inaccurate. The study shows that by attacking a news outlet elites are able to increase citizens' perceptions of partisan bias in that outlet. However, we also find that this does not spill over to their general perception of bias or trust in the traditional media. In addition, we demonstrate that not all types of elite attacks on the media have a similar effect, as we find no evidence of tweets where elites criticize the news for being inaccurate impact citizens' perceptions of the media.

Does exposure to news affect what people know about politics? This old question attracted new scholarly interest as the political information environment is changing rapidly. In particular, since citizens have new channels at their disposal, such as Twitter and Facebook, which increasingly complement or even replace traditional channels of information. This study investigates to what extent citizens have knowledge about daily politics and to what extent news on social media can provide this knowledge. It does so by means of a large online survey in Belgium (Flanders), in which we measured what people know about current political events, their so-called general surveillance knowledge. Our findings demonstrate that unlike following news via traditional media channels, citizens do not gain more political knowledge from following news on social media. We even find a negative association between following the news on Facebook and political knowledge. We further investigate why this is the case. Our data demonstrate that this lack of learning on social media is not due to a narrow, personalized news diet, as is often suggested. Rather, we find evidence that following news via social media increases a feeling of information overload, which decreases what people actually learn, especially for citizens who combine news via social media with other news sources.

“Lifestyle politics” suggests that political and ideological opinions are strongly connected to our consumption choices, music and food taste, cultural preferences, and other aspects of our daily lives. With the growing political polarization this idea has become all the more relevant to a wide range of social scientists. Empirical research in this domain, however, is confronted with an impractical challenge; this type of detailed information on people’s lifestyle is very difficult to operationalize, and extremely time consuming and costly to query in a survey. A potential valuable alternative data source to capture these values and lifestyle choices is social media data. In this study, we explore the value of Facebook “like” data to complement traditional survey data to study lifestyle politics. We collect a unique dataset of Facebook likes and survey data of more than 6500 participants in Belgium, a fragmented multi-party system. Based on both types of data, we infer the political and ideological preference of our respondents. The results indicate that non-political Facebook likes are indicative of political preference and are useful to describe voters in terms of common interests, cultural preferences, and lifestyle features. This shows that social media data can be a valuable complement to traditional survey data to study lifestyle politics.

How Issue Salience Pushes Voters to the Left or to the Right Recent research demonstrates that political parties in western Europe are generally structured along one dimension – and often take more or less similar ideological positions on the economic and cultural dimension – whereas the policy preferences of voters are structured two dimensionally; a considerable part of the electorate combines left-wing stances on one dimension with right-wing stances on the other. These ideologically ‘unserved’ voters are the main focus of this study. Using data from a large-scale survey in Flanders and Wallonia, we demonstrate how the salience of the two dimensions explains whether these unserved voters ultimately end up voting for a right-wing or a left-wing party. Specifically, we show that these voters elect a party that is ideologically closest on the dimension that they deem most important at that time. To summarise, the findings of this study confirm that salience is a key driver of electoral choice, especially for cross-pressured voters.

This contribution explores to what extent there is such a thing as a distinct Muslim vote in flexible proportional list systems. We test in a new and reliable way whether the religious belonging and behavioural dimension of Muslim voters play a role in their decision-making process when casting preferential votes in a secular democracy. To achieve this, voter and candidate characteristics are modelled simultaneously in cross-classified multilevel analyses where the decision-making process of voters (the demand side) is studied while taking into account the list composition in terms of individual candidates (the supply side). We use data of an exit poll related to the local elections of 2018 in Belgium, especially at oversampled locations. The analyses show that voters who belong to Muslim faith are more likely to vote for Muslim candidates. Contrary, the behaviour dimension of Muslim voters – measured in mosque attendance - has no effect on voting primarily for Muslim candidates.