미디어대학 이상원 교수가 Uninformed and Misinformed: Advancing a Theoretical Model for Social Media News Use and Political Knowledge이라는 논문으로 미국 내 최대 규모의 커뮤니케이션 학회인 National Communication Association(NCA) 정치커뮤니케이션 분과에서 수여하는 Michael Pfau Outstanding Article Award를 수상한다.

NCA는 커뮤니케이션 연구와 교육 분야에서 가장 영향력 있는 학회 중 하나로, 매년 수천 명의 연구자와 전문가들이 참여한다. 이번 수상은 이상원 교수가 수행한 연구의 학문적 탁월성과 기여도를 국제적으로 인정받은 성과로 평가된다.

시상식은 오는 11월 20일부터 23일까지 덴버에 열리는 NCA 연례 학술대회에서 진행될 예정이다.

논문명: Uninformed and Misinformed: Advancing a Theoretical Model for Social Media News Use and Political Knowledge

논문 초록: Scholarship has now recognized the potentially detrimental effects of social media on political knowledge. At the same time, a separate but similar line of work has raised concerns that these platforms are the primary vector of political misinformation. Despite the renewed focus on misinformation studies, the question as to whether political knowledge and susceptibility to misinformation are related remains open. If they are indeed related, we still know little about the underlying cognitive mechanisms that drive political learning when people rely on social media for news. Based on a two-wave panel survey collected during the 2020 U.S. presidential election, we found that social media news use fosters the news-finds-me perception (particularly among those who feel overwhelmed with the volume of information available on social media). This, in turn, leads people to be both uninformed and misinformed about politics and current affairs. Implications for democracy are discussed.