"Narratives and opinion polarization: a survey experiment"

Authors:
Armenak Antinyan | Thames Water Utilities
Thomas Bassetti | dSEA Unipd
Luca Corazzini | University of Milano-Bicocca
Filippo Pavesi | LIUC Università Carlo Cattaneo

Through a survey experiment, this article explores how narratives about COVID-19's origins influence beliefs and policy opinions among US citizens. The study compares two media narratives regarding the outbreak: the Lab Narrative, which attributes the outbreak to human error in a Chinese laboratory, and the Nature Narrative, which attributes the outbreak to natural causes. Results indicate that both narratives influence beliefs about COVID-19's origins, resulting in polarization based on narrative exposure. Notably, only the Nature Narrative significantly shifts policy attitudes, enhancing support for climate protection and trust in science, highlighting one-sided polarization. Additionally, the authors show that the LabNarrative polarizes opinions between Republican- and Democratic-leaning states on issues such as climate change and foreign trade, signaling the influence of social context on policy divergence.

Read their "Nature Scientific Reports" paper here