Political Professor says fake news had small impact in election
Heim: Fake news likely reinforced your views or you ignored it
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WKBT) — Whether fake news stories impacted the results of last week’s elections is being strongly contested from both sides.
Our political analyst Joe Heim says the fake news stories likely had an impact, but a minor one at best. Heim says he believes the stories were not meant to swing votes one way or the other.
“For a vast majority of these stories that are fake, a lot of people will read them and if they’re a Trump supporter or a Clinton supporter, it will tend to reinforce your views. ‘I didn’t like her before and this confirms it,’ or ‘I didn’t like him and this confirms it.’ So you look for reinforcement of your views. If it’s different than your views you tend to ignore it,” said UW-La Crosse Political Science Professor Joe Heim.
Heim also recommends researching articles and stories to determine if they are credible.
