Refereed review article in scientific journal (A2)
Fighting Misperceptions and Doubting Journalists’ Objectivity: A Review of Fact-checking Literature
List of Authors: Sakari Nieminen, Lauri Rapeli
Publisher: SAGE Publications Inc.
Publication year: 2019
Journal: Political studies review
Journal name in source: Political Studies Review
Volume number: 17
Issue number: 3
Start page: 296
End page: 309
Number of pages: 14
ISSN: 1478-9299
eISSN: 1478-9302
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1478929918786852
Fact checkers evaluate the truthfulness of political claims appearing in public. The practice has increased enormously in recent years. This review analyses research concerning political fact-checking; it presents what kind of studies have been made about fact-checking and introduces their main findings. Most of the literature focuses either on fact-checking as a profession or on its corrective potential. Research about the effectiveness of fact-checking offers mixed results: some find that fact-checking reduces misperceptions, others that corrections are often ineffective. It is also disputed whether fact checkers are consistent in their conclusions and whether their methods are reliable. Moreover, the literature is overwhelmingly focused in the US context.