News Informs and Boosts Discernment: A Replication in France and Germany

Can the news help people be more resilient to misinformation? Altay et al. found that news use increases surveillance knowledge and awareness of true and false news, while decreasing belief in false news. We conducted a two-wave panel survey ( N = 3,395) to replicate these findings in two new countries: France and Germany. The replication reinforces the conclusions of the original study: we found that higher news consumption predicted greater surveillance knowledge acquisition across the waves, as well as greater awareness of and belief in true news stories. News consumption also increased awareness of false news stories without increasing belief in false news stories. These findings strengthen the idea that news helps people become more informed and better at discerning truth from falsehoods.