Age, political orientation and information

Relationship between age, political orientation and sources of information for both demographics 

Age and political orientation

One of our important assumptions concerned differences in political orientation; as Menton harbours an elderly and economically comfortable population we expected to survey right wing affiliation while students would be evenly spread along the spectrum without particularly extreme positions. 

Our inquiry confirmed that the older group is overwhelmingly in the right-wing category, but almost half also claimed to have stopped positioning themselves in politics. The young demographic was relatively evenly spread, but with a higher proportions in the center and left. This confirmed our predicted correlation between generational political inclinations, but we also noted that the locals feel less concerned by politics altogether than the students. Furthermore the old locals affiliating themselves in the right commented several times that it was out of tradition or having been educated that way. We wished to mirror these findings with party affiliation; locals showed a mixture of support and great criticism for Macron’s République en Marche, included a supporter of the Rassemblement National, while others referred to old conservative parties and politicians; several commented that current political parties in France aren’t satisfactory. The students showed highest support for REM, then were evenly divided between left-wing parties in their home countries and absence of party affiliation. 

This understanding of political trends across generational lines confirmed our predictions helped us explore how they affect the information process, and political biases of sources used.

Age and sources of information

Our field work thus gave us an overview of the information practices of both old Mentonnese and young international students. We expected old people to use TV as a main source of information and be present on social media mostly through whatsapp groups or emails. As for the young people, we expected a majority of them to engage with social media and press on the internet. Our research showed that our sample of old people had no exposure whatsoever to social media for information purposes and that most of them used TV and newspapers. Four of the old people interviewed clearly mentioned that they do not trust the internet for information purposes and are really reluctant to transmit personal data. Their sources of information can be an indicator for their political affiliation or their fact checking practices. Mainstream french TV channels were mentioned amongst old people, LCI, BFM TV and TF1 for example. As for the press, more partisan sources were highlighted, as Le Figaro and Le Point, traditionally on the right wing of the political spectrum, and Valeurs Actuelles, a known extreme right newspaper. Young people’s sources of information were more diverse, most of them use social media and a significant part gets information from the press. We found out that young international students read international newspapers that claim a neutral stance. 

As argued in the first part of our analysis, elderly mentonnese tend to be more sensitive to misinformation, especially on the origin of the virus and bring much more unjustified claims than young people. However, the sources of information used by old people are considered reliable sources, first as they are recognised newspaper and TV channels that do journalist work. Moreover, the people interviewed, both old and young people argued that they trusted the sources they used. Thus, one first cause of the spread of misinformation on Covid19, especially among old people, can be explained by the infiltration of false information in legitimate sources, as we drew from our bibliographical research. For example, political figures might spread false information in press conferences that are retransmitted by legitimate sources. The difference in fact checking and truth finding practices between old and young people can thus explain the spread of misinformation amongst the older generation. 

Another variable that can explain the rise of misinformation is the sensitive relationship readers can have to information especially in the context of the Covid19 crisis. The author of the article “The epic battle against misinformation and conspiracy theories” argues that “coronavirus has provided a context particularly sensitive to the spread of misinformation, as it is both an emotional subject but also a polarising one”. Through our research we deduced that old people had a more emotional relationship to the news events. Firstly, the sources they use, especially on TV, rely on emotional mechanisms and this creates an emotional relationship to news. One of the interviews we conducted can illustrate this trend. One old woman expressed having a strong admiration for Didier Raoult and considered hydroxychloroquine as a good way to treat Covid 19. She was also very critical of Didier Raoult’s opponents. Those types of claims mainly rely on unjustified arguments. Thus, emotion creates another bias for the complete understanding of a news event. On the other side, young international students showed being more critical of the information existing in social media and said they share opinions online. This habit does not necessarily confront them to different opinions than their already established thoughts, mainly because of personalised algorithms, but push them to adopt more efficient fact checking processes.  

Thus, through our inquiry, we could determine different information practices. We understood that the spread of misinformation in the context of the Covid19 pandemic, and more generally in social media or in the press is not linked to the sources themselves, people read sources commonly viewed as reliable, but to the already existing emotional bias and to the differents degrees of fact checking across generations. 

Additional discoveries

Finally, our work intended to analyse a possible differentiation in the relationship to information. 

We believed that due to an awareness around the present era of misinformation and the importance of fact checking processes, the young group would be moderate in their levels of certainty of their answers, allowing for a margin of error. On the other hand we estimated that old people would hold stronger positions. Contrarily to what we thought, most students held very high levels of certainty regarding their previous answers. The older group however was equally spread among medium and high levels of certainty. This trend towards the elder generation being less sure of their answers seemed more incoherent in relation to previous answers; we concluded that they affirm their beliefs but are more reluctant to back up or justify them. This can be explained by a lesser possibility to fact-check or cross-reference than young people accessing the Internet, involved in debates online and exposed to more information and thus developing a more assured and solid truth-finding process. 

We explored the groups’ receptivity to conspiracy theories as realistic explanations, estimating it to be higher among older people due to a less rigorous truth finding process and factors of emotionalism, and lower among the young because their exposure to them on social media could make them more critical. In fact, young people are more nuanced on the topic, many are indeed critical of these explanations, but several recognise the fact that some could be valid whilst others are clearly fabrications and products of ignorance. As for older people, they were particularly reactive to the label of conspiracy theory, rejecting any affiliation to it; thus it is more difficult to evaluate their true exposure to conspiracy theory. They are less aware of conspiracy theories as a concept, but more likely to believe them as realistic explanations as we saw through the higher susceptibility to misinformation. It became more interesting in terms of the perception of people who support conspiracy theories. Indeed, young people were more critical of them but a small number of them nuanced that these people were seeking alternative explanations to phenomena. On the other hand, older people were less critical and mostly argued that everyone could have their opinions, giving a malleable understanding of truth.  

Inquiry for Digital Culture Class

D’Alfonso Gaia

Goffaux Elza

Hussain Shah Zain

Stedman Anita