Political Rumors: Why We Accept Misinformation and How to Fight It

Adam Berinsky — professor of political science at MIT and one of the leading empirical researchers on political misinformation — addresses a question that is simultaneously simple and underexplored: who actually believes political rumours, under what conditions, and what interventions work to reduce that belief? His approach is experimental and cumulative: drawing on over a decade of survey experiments and field studies, he maps the psychological and social conditions that make certain populations susceptible to certain kinds of political misinformation.

The book's practical contribution is significant. Berinsky finds that corrections can work — but that their effectiveness depends heavily on who delivers them, not just what they say. Partisan messengers are often counterproductive; corrections from unexpected sources — including, in some cases, co-partisans of the rumour-believers — are substantially more effective. He also finds that the timing of corrections matters, and that some false beliefs are more correctable than others. For practitioners designing counter-disinformation interventions or advising clients on communication strategy in contested information environments, Political Rumors provides some of the most rigorous available evidence about what actually moves the needle. Essential reading for anyone who needs to move beyond intuition to evidence in this field.