Keynote

Persuasion in the era of high volume and high velocity information: A social psychological look at social media, fake news, and conspiracy theories

In this talk, I will characterize the high velocity, high volume information era we are undergoing, particularly in the context of social media. I will describe selective exposure, selective dissemination, and selective validation as the hallmarks of social media processing in a context that deprives recipients of cognitive capacity to invalidate misinformation. I will then describe research on fake news, other sources of misinformation, and conspiracy theories. One of my experimental findings suggests that evil human actions may be flagged as conspiratorial but are captivating when the audience is transported by the narrative. Another finding indicates that threatening misinformation can escalate because correction attempts intensify the initial uptake of the misinformation. I will then close by discussing how the social media also contain the key to countering the same processes it engenders by organizing social action.