코로나19 관련 허위정보에 대한 인식과 당파성의 역할 = The Role of Partisanship in Public Perceptions About the COVID-19 Misinformation

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

As the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has had a severe effect and became politicized across the world, we have witnessed that the rapid spread of misinformation and misperceptions about the COVID-19 have been damaging to personal health as well as inflicting massive social costs for managing the public health crisis. Growing concerns about the social consequences of the COVID-19 infodemic have lead scholarly works to focus mainly on the extent to which people with misperceptions ignore the government guidelines or hesitate to vaccinate. However, much less empirical work has asked who are more susceptible to embrace misinformation. Using a online panel survey, the purpose of this study was to explore how misperceptions about the COVID-19 are distributed among the public in South Korea, focusing on the role of partisanship and partisan polarization. This analysis found that the direction and strength of partisan identities play a crucial role in embracing the COVID-19 misinformation. It also shows that presidential out-partisans tend to embrace substantially greater misperceptions than presidential co-partisans, and the partisan perception gap is more pronounced for those with higher levels of partisan polarization.

국문 초록 (Abstract)

팬데믹이 확산될수록 잘못된 정보 역시 빠르게 전파되는 현상을 가르키는 이른바 인포데믹(Infodemic)의 문제는 실제 개인의 건강을 위협할 뿐만 아니라 허위정보에 취약할수록 백신 접종 거부나 방역지침에 대한 불신으로 이어져 정부의 위기관리 조정비용을 상승시키는 등 사회적 폐해를 야기하고 있다. 갈수록 뉴미디어 환경을 통해 허위정보의 유포와 확산이 용이해지고 있지만 상대적으로 누가 코로나19 관련 허위정보에 취약한가라는 질문에 대한 경험적 연구는 아직 부족한 편이다. 이러한 문제의식 속에 본 논문은 당파성(Partisanship)과 당파적 양극화(Partisan polarization)의 심화라는 정치적 환경이 코로나19 관련 허위정보에 대한 사회적 인식을 형성하는데 있어 어떠한 영향을 미치는지 살펴보고 있다. 2021년 8월 말 실시한 ‘코로나19의 사회적 영향과 시민인식에 관한 온라인 패널여론조사’ 자료를 분석한 결과, 본 논문은 당파성의 유무 자체보다도 당파성의 방향과 당파적 양극화의 강도에 따라 코로나19 관련 허위정보에 대한 일반 시민의 믿음 혹은 불신 경향이 유의미한 차이를 보인다는 점을 발견하였다.

참고문헌 (Reference)

1 김기동 ; 이재묵, "한국 유권자의 당파적 정체성과 정서적 양극화" 한국정치학회 55 (55): 57-87, 2021

2 동아사이언스, "코로나19 가짜뉴스로 1∼3월 사이 800명 숨졌다"

3 장승진 ; 한정훈, "유튜브는 사용자들을 정치적으로 양극화시키는가?: 주요 정치 및 시사 관련 유튜브 채널 구독자에 대한 설문조사 분석" 현대정치연구소 14 (14): 5-35, 2021

4 길정아 ; 하상응, "당파적 편향에 따른 책임 귀속: 여야간 갈등인식과 정당 호감도를 중심으로" 한국의회발전연구회 25 (25): 45-78, 2019

5 Charron, Nicholas, "Uncooperative Society, Uncooperative Politics or Both? How Trust, Polarization and Populism Explain Excess Mortality for COVID-19 across European Regions" The Quality of Government Institute 2020

6 Han, Qing, "Trust in Government Regarding COVID-19 and Its Associations with Preventive Health Behaviour and Prosocial Behaviour During the Pandemic: A Cross-Sectional and Longitudinal Study" 1-11, 2021

7 Fukuyama, Francis, "The Thing That Determines a Country’s Resistance to the Coronavirus" 2020

8 Druckman, James N., "The Role of Race, Religion, and Partisanship in Misperceptions about COVID-19" 24 (24): 638-657, 2021

9 Druckman, James N, "The Politics of Motivation" 24 (24): 199-216, 2012

10 Lipsitz, Keena, "The Partisan Divide in Social Distancing"

11 Iyengar, Shanto, "The Origins and Consequences of Affective Polarization in the United States" 22 : 129-146, 2019

12 Lelkes, Yphtach, "The Hostile Audience : The Effect of Access to Broadband Internet on Partisan Affect" 61 (61): 5-20, 2017

13 Cinelli, Matteo, "The COVID-19 Social Media Infodemic" 10 (10): 1-10, 2020

14 Tucker, Joshua A, "Social Media, Political Polarization, and Political Disinformation: A Review of the Scientific Literature"

15 Bartscher, Alina Kristin, "Social Capital and the Spread of COVID-19: Insights from European Countries" Center for Economic Studies and Ifo Institute 2020

16 Oksanen, Atte, "Regulation and Trust: 3-Month Follow-up Study on COVID-19 Mortality in 25 European Countries" 6 (6): e19218-, 2020

17 Clark, Cory, "Predictors of COVID-19 Voluntary Compliance Behaviors : An International Investigation" 2 : 76-82, 2020

18 Grossman, Guy, "Political Partisanship Influences Behavioral Responses to Governors’ Recommendations for COVID-19 Prevention in the United States" 117 (117): 24144-24153, 2020

19 Calvillo, Dustin P., "Political Ideology Predicts Perceptions of the Threat of COVID-19(and Susceptibility to Fake News About It)" 11 (11): 1119-1128, 2020

20 Allcott, Hunt, "Polarization and Public Health : Partisan Differences in Social Distancing During COVID-19" 191 : 104-254, 2020

21 Gadarian, Shana K., "Partisanship, Health behavior, and Political Attitudes in the Early Stages of the COVID-19 Pandemic" 16 (16): e0249596-, 2021

22 Levendusky, Mattew, "Partisan Media Exposure and Attitudes Toward the Opposition" 30 (30): 565-581, 2013

23 Druckman, James N., "No Need to Watch : How the Effects of Partisan Media Can Spread via Interpersonal Discussion" 62 (62): 99-112, 2018

24 Karandeep Singh, "Misinformation, believability, and vaccine acceptance over 40 countries: Takeaways from the initial phase of the COVID-19 infodemic" Public Library of Science (PLoS) 17 (17): e0263381-, 2022

25 Loomba, Sahil, "Measuring the Impact of COVID-19 Vaccine Misinformation on Vaccination Intent in the UK and USA" 5 : 337-348, 2021

26 Druckman, James N., "How Affective Polarization Shapes American Political Beliefs : a Study of Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic" 8 (8): 223-234, 2021

27 Iyengar, Shanto., "Fear and Loathing across Party Lines : New Evidence on Group Polarization" 59 (59): 690-707, 2015

28 Krause, Nicole, M., "Fact-checking as Risk Communication: The Multi-layered Risk of Misinformation in Times of COVID-19" 23 (23): 1052-1059, 2020

29 Krupenkin, Masha, "Does Partisanship Affect Compliance With Government Recommendations?" 43 : 451-472, 2021

30 Daniel Romer, "Conspiracy theories as barriers to controlling the spread of COVID-19 in the U.S." Elsevier BV 263 : 113356-, 2020

31 Harring, Niklas, "COVID-19 : Large-scale Collective Action, Government Intervention, and the Importance of Trust" 138 : 105236-, 2021

32 Druckman, James N, "Affective Polarization, Local Context, and Public Opinion in America" 5 : 28-38, 2021

33 Iyengar, Shanto, "Affect, Not Ideology : A Social Identity Perspective on Polarization" 76 (76): 405-431, 2012