News Sources, Partisanship, and Political Knowledge in COVID-19 Beliefs

This study analyzed data from a Pew survey (N = 5,681) to see how party identification, political knowledge, and use of different news sources related to two beliefs about COVID-19 promoted on the right early in the pandemic: that the virus was created in a laboratory and that a vaccine for it would be available within a few months. Republicans were more likely to hold these beliefs. The more that people used news outlets with right-leaning audiences, the more likely they were to hold those two beliefs. The more they used news with left-leaning audiences, the less likely they were to believe the virus was laboratory made, a relationship stronger among Democrats. Political knowledge appeared to discourage believing the virus was laboratory-made, again more so among Democrats. However, the more that Democrats (but not Republicans) used news with bipartisan audiences, the more likely they were to believe the virus was laboratory made. Similarly, the more that Democrats (but not Republicans) used social media for news, the more they believed a vaccine would be available soon, and right-leaning news use had a stronger relationship with the early vaccine belief among Democrats.