Maxwell School News and Commentary

Grant Reeher, professor of political science and director of the Campbell Public Affairs Institute says, "If it’s constant updates and endless press conferences with nothing new but an updated number, it doesn’t help," about how much information should be shared about the coronavirus pandemic.

According to Professor Allan Mazur, conspiracy theories are, by definition, resistant to evidence or data that might prove them false.

A single piece of information rarely changes anyone’s opinion, "whether it’s true-or false," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, "That’s a good thing." The idea that a handful of unreliable outlets were going to substantially alter views or behaviors "is pretty far-fetched, given what we know about the stability of people’s political attitudes," she adds.

“Misconceptions about a particular policy, these are pretty common,” says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, about falsehoods about policies for an article for the CT Mirror.

"Rep. [Adam] Schiff is protected by the Speech or Debate Clause of the Constitution from being questioned 'in any other place,'" said William Banks, professor emeritus of public administration and international affairs. "The protection clearly extends to the offending Tweets."

In the wake of President Trump's recent tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color, Margaret Susan Thompson, associate professor of history and political science, assesses that coded racial language began to be used as a political strategy under President Richard Nixon.

"Corrections of misinformation are constantly being amplified," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science. People are trying to do something good by correcting the misinformation but in the process they're "pushing it out to more people and potentially causing more belief echoes to arise."

Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science, defines "belief echoes" as "effects on attitudes that persist even when you know that a piece of information is false."

"I’d argue that much of the dysfunction we see in online interactions is just a symptom of much larger and older social problems, including but not limited to racism and misogyny," says Emily Thorson, assistant professor of political science.