Misinformation: Who is to Blame?

While reading the misinformation article by Kuklinski et al, I found myself trying to answer question number five in the conclusion: What causes people to be misinformed? It can probably be partially explained by basic mental processes as they suggest. My first instinct was to blame the media. This is consistent with the findings by Jerit and Barabas and their theory that misleading statements lead to misinformation. “What is said is not as important as how its said”. It is also consistent with the findings by Nyhan, who found that the media often provide the public with misinformation. A newspaper/ news source may use phrases that lead the public to form incorrect assumptions, whether this is the intended consequence or not. In this case, misinformation would not be a personal problem but institutional one.In this case the question remains: Is it the responsibility of the American people to look out for misinformation or should the media be held accountable for this? Also, should we be just as concerned with which journalists write for prominent newspapers as we are with which politicians represent us? After all, we get most of our info from mass media. I would argue that the responsibility for misinformation should be shared between journalists and the American citizens. While we should expect a certain level of quality from journalists, we cannot blindly accept everything they have to say as true. They are only humans and most likely have their own biases.

But then I began to wonder whether misinformation could be "caused by" heuristics. People may make inferences about certain facts based on preconceived notions about the news source it came from. People may interpret facts based on the source of those facts, even when biased wording is not used. For example, if a conservative Republican were to read facts about the Health Care Plan from a historically liberal paper, they may automatically dismiss them or view them as biased. However, if the same person were to read the exact same facts from a conservative newspaper, they may be more likely to believe the facts are legitimate. In this case, misinformation may be characterized not just by accepting "wrong" facts provided by the media, but by rejecting correct ones because of their source. If this holds true, then misinformation is not just an institutional problem, but a problem with the manner in which people use heuristics.