| Popis: |
In an increasingly polarized political environment, heightened focus has been placed on the potentially devastating effects of misinformation on democracy. Emblematic of this concern is the viral conspiracy theory QAnon, which began during the Trump presidency and evolved to become a frequent distributor of misinformation. In this paper, we investigate the extent to which Americans are exposed to QAnon, in what contexts, and to what effect. To do so, we employ a mixed methods review of 21 million website visits from a nationally representative sample of 1,238 U.S. adults collected during the 2020 presidential election. We find that: (1) exposure to QAnon is limited and stratified by political affiliation and news consumption; (2) exposure tends to occur within right-wing media ecosystems that align with QAnon beliefs; and (3) mixed methods approaches to analyzing digital trace data can provide rich insights that contextualize quantitative techniques. |
