From Taylor Swift psy-ops to hidden UFOs, conspiracy theories thrive amid declining trust in mainstream media. Canvas8 spoke to political researcher Dr Rebecca Scheffauer to uncover the role of cable news in shaping conspiracy mentalities and how news brands can help rebuild trust.
Scope
In early 2024, Taylor Swift was accused of being a Pentagon-controlled psy-op secretly working to re-elect Joe Biden. [1]From fringe speculations, Fox News’ Jesse Watters escalated things through a video ‘expose’ of how Swift was turned into an asset, further asking whether Swift’s pop success was 'engineered' by the government. [2] Within days, conservative influencers had come up with their own speculations about her relationship with NFL star Travis Kelce, suggesting it’s a calculated distraction to sway voters. Even former presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy fanned the flames, hinting that the Super Bowl and the 2024 election were being manipulated by the couple. While the Pentagon itself easily debunked the theory, its spread is impossible to ignore. [3]
With four in five US teens believing conspiracy theories they see online, it’s no wonder nearly one in five Americans were sold on the psy-op Swift theory. [4] Decentralised media and misinformation have made it easier to believe that the US is hiding UFOs or that a solar eclipse signaled Doomsday, with people eventually clamoring for prominent conspiracy theorist Alex Jones’s return to X. As trust in institutions continues to decline, people are turning to alternative narratives to explain the world around them – from traditional journalism to user-generated content in platforms such as TikTok and X, where emotionally charged speculation circulates rapidly, often unchecked. [5]
Still, while social media provides fertile ground for conspiracies, the involvement of established media, such as Fox News, gives these narratives credibility, pushing fringe ideas further into mainstream consciousness. To understand how cable news, in particular, shapes people’s tendency to see the world through a conspiratorial lens, Canvas8 spoke to Dr Rebecca Scheffauer, a postdoctoral researcher at the German Institute for Economic Research in Berlin. In her recent paper Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories: Exploring Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC’s Effects on People’s Conspiracy Mentality, Dr Scheffauer explores how cable news viewing habits may affect the likelihood of believing in hidden agendas, secret plots, and powerful, unseen actors controlling major events.
Why is this topic important to understand?
Politics across the globe is currently extremely polarised, with people clustering at the extremes. It is important to understand what drives people to extremes to combat this issue. News plays a significant role in politics.
Traditional news is impactful in educating people and providing them with political knowledge, which can encourage participation. However, news media can also have negative impacts. The spread of misinformation on social media and conspiracy theories can lead to polarization, political extremism, and distrust in the political system.
There has been a good amount of research on what might spark conspiracy beliefs and conspiracy mentality, but a lot of it is focused on more psychological factors. There is not that much research on the role of media in causing a conspiracy mindset.
Social media is a very special case because it's really hard to distill information as it can come from virtually any source. So, it's a lot more difficult to pinpoint effects in that regard. With cable news, we found it interesting because it's more general. For example, on social media, it's more of a matter of picking and choosing. Not everybody sees the same thing. But a cable news report on television looks the same to everybody. So if I see it and you see it, and it has different effects on us, at least we know it's not the content itself. That was the problem there.
What did you want to find out?
One important distinction is that we specifically examined conspiracy mentality, which differs from much other research. Many studies focus on conspiracy beliefs, which involve asking about specific conspiracy theories. Conspiracy mentality, however, is the underlying predisposition to believe in conspiracies generally.
This is especially important because much research is also drawn along partisan lines (e.g. Republicans are more susceptible). This is closely tied to conspiracy beliefs, as specific conspiracy theories are often tied to a specific party.
We wanted to examine conspiracy mentality to transcend partisan lines. If we find effects with conspiracy mentality, they can apply across the board. The next step was to find out if cable news sparks conspiracy beliefs, reinforces them, or even reduces them over time – especially when we look at different outlets because their news styles differ. They report differently and emphasize different things. So we were very curious to see what effects we might find.
What were your key findings?
The data we used for this research comes from a two-wave survey that we conducted in the United States. We asked the same set of people the same questions twice, three months apart. By asking them twice, we could establish causality and effects across time. A lot of research is done cross-sectionally, where participants are only asked questions once, which makes it difficult to establish causality.
We looked at how different types of cable news impacted conspiracy mentality over time. We included MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, as well as other types of news consumption. First, we ran a couple of regression analyses, which test if A affects B, while controlling for other factors. We found that CNN and MSNBC do not impact conspiracy mentality at all, but Fox News is positively and strongly related to conspiracy mentality.
We then did a clustering analysis, which showed two clear groups: low conspiracy mentality and low Fox News consumption; high conspiracy mentality and high Fox News consumption. In the final step, we wanted to see if watching Fox News caused people to be more conspiratorial or if being more conspiratorial caused people to watch Fox News. We found that there is a reciprocal effect over time, but Fox News is the thing that comes first. So, it is Fox News that sparks the conspiracy mentality, not the other way around.
In terms of why this happens with Fox News, there are several potential causes. When compared with other news outlets in the study, Fox’s reporting is more dismissive and less impartial while giving air time to controversial speakers who openly argue for conspiracist angles.
It also relates to findings from another paper we wrote. We found that journalists can have a strong positive impact on the news you trust or don't trust, whereas algorithms are not significant. So again, journalists are the thing that people tend to trust even if they worry about the media system at large.
Insights and opportunities
Turn headlines into informed choices
With trust in traditional institutions at an all-time low, conspiracy theories have flourished – not because people are inherently gullible but because they need their biases confirmed amid constant uncertainty, which algorithms easily provide. [6]This has affected the youth, with only 11% of young Americans able to reliably distinguish fake news from real news. [7] This confusion about how to distinguish what’s credible and not is exacerbated when trusted platforms falter. When Meta recently shifted from professional fact-checking to user-generated ‘community notes,’ the move sparked backlash precisely because it made it harder for people to distinguish fact from fiction. Rather than merely correcting misinformation – an approach that often deepens existing skepticism – there’s a clear need to build genuine media literacy skills, empowering audiences to independently evaluate credibility and rebuild confidence in navigating information themselves. Initiatives such as BBC Verify and Brazil’s Desinfopedia exemplify how credible, clearly signposted resources can help audiences navigate the noise.
Show the value of curated insights
“People often won’t fact-check or critique information if they can find similar content quickly through Google,” notes Dr Scheffauer. [8] We’ve reached a time when accurate, thoroughly researched journalism often sits behind a paywall, which only 22% of Americans are willing to pay for. Meanwhile, two-thirds of people regularly rely on free social media platforms for news despite the prevalence of misinformation. [9] This imbalance leads audiences, especially younger ones, to seek out accessible sources subject to less fact-checking, driving the popularity of shows such as The Rest Is Politics and The Blindboy Podcast – even Donald Trump and Kamala Harris turned to podcasts during the 2024 presidential race. But with 36% of people globally saying they would consider paying for news in the future, there’s an opportunity to offer credible information that can be both paid and accessible, as in tiered access or partnerships. [10] Indie media platform 404 Media offers tiered access, with hopes that its reliability and accessibility will help audiences understand why high-quality journalism is worth paying for.
Unmask the story behind the story
The public’s skepticism of mainstream news isn’t just about paying for it – it’s also driven by confusion about how information is produced. Especially during highly political events, 54% of people admitted to disengaging because they couldn’t tell what was true anymore. [11] As Dr Scheffauer points out, audiences need “easy and tangible ways to instantly determine whether news sources are trustworthy.” [12] This gap leads to opportunities to explicitly communicate the production process of how content is built – whether that’s by highlighting how stories are sourced, verified, and produced. The New York Times’ endorsement of Kamala Harris in the 2024 US presidential race appealed to this desire for transparency and directness, prioritizing unambiguity based on well-recognized Trump quotes. By visibly showcasing the rigor and effort that go behind journalism, brands can demystify their work, foster credibility, and reconnect with audiences who have grown wary of hidden biases and superficial reporting.
Humanize the face of reporting
"Journalists can have a positive impact on the news you see and the news you trust or don't trust,” Dr Scheffauer says. “[From our findings,] it seems that the journalists themselves are the important anchoring point. They are the ‘thing’ people tend to trust… I think it helps if you have a person, like a face, that you can attach the information to." [12] Amid declining trust in traditional media, people increasingly seek credible figures who signal integrity and authenticity. Just 22% of people start their news journeys directly with established news websites or apps, down from 32% in 2018. [13]Younger audiences, in particular, turn toward influencers and personalities on platforms such as TikTok and Instagram. [13] Independent photojournalist Motaz Azaiza, with his on-the-ground Instagram coverage of the war in Gaza, became a trusted source precisely because he offered transparency and accountability. By clearly attributing the reporting to identifiable figures whose expertise and transparency audiences can easily verify, brands and media organizations have the opportunity to humanize their journalism and regain public trust.
