| Description |
Research finds that social media platforms' peer-to-peer structures shapes the public discourse, and increases citizens' likelihood of exposure to unregulated, false, and prejudicial content. Here, we test whether self-reported reliance on social media as a primary news source is linked to racialized policy support, taking the case of U.S. Muslims, a publicly visible but understudied group about whom significant false and prejudicial content is abundant on these platforms. Drawing on three original surveys and the Nationscape Dataset, we find a strong and consistent association between reliance on social media and support for a range of anti-Muslim policies. Importantly, reliance on social media is linked to policy attitudes across the partisan divide and for individuals who reported holding positive or negative feelings towards Muslims. These findings highlight the need for further investigation into the political ramification of information presented on contemporary social media outlets, particularly information related to stigmatized groups.
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ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management