The Pennsylvania State University The Graduate School School of Humanities DECONSTRUCTING COGNITIVE BIAS OF THE LATINO ELECTORAL PUBLIC OPINION IN THE U.S. AND ITS RELATIONSHIP WITH MEDIA DURING THE POST-TRUTH ERA A Thesis in Communications by Luis Eduardo Iglesias Monsalve © 2019 Luis Eduardo Iglesias Monsalve Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts May 2019 ii The thesis of Luis Eduardo Iglesias Monsalve was reviewed and approved* by the following: Nakho Kim Assistant Professor of Communications Thesis Advisor Peter J. Kareithi Associate Professor of Communications Chair of Communications Graduate Program Catherine Rios Associate Professor of Communications Communications Graduate Faculty *Signatures are on file in the Graduate School. iii ABSTRACT Strategic misinformation is an unavoidable term when addressing the relationship between politics, democracy and mass media in the 21st century. Deliberate propaganda has a long trajectory in our history, and it has existed as long as media has been essential for those in power to represent their interests to large audiences. This thesis analyzes the role of strategic misinformation in mediatized democracies of current times, considering cognitive bias as a crucial element that is highly exploited during the creation of systematic and targeted messages that are spread over internet and social media. Also, the research investigates how strategic misinformation may be an incidental factor in certain population groups when they decide to be part of democratic processes. Religion and the diaspora in the U.S. are two important factors for Latino and Hispanic voting decisions and interaction with news. In the theoretical framework, this thesis emphasizes in post- truth and truth from a Foucauldian approach, cognitive bias and propaganda. The thesis implements an experiment with 15 participants (liberals and conservatives) and it is divided in three categories: a survey to measure their political inclination; exposure to strategic misinformation created to analyze different levels of trust in news that may go against their ideological preferences; and finally a questionnaire to analyze if a change in the levels of trust was possible. Religious affiliation of participants was a key factor that represented levels of confirmation bias related to the stories they read during the experiment, all of which were politically ideological. Keywords: strategic misinformation, post-truth, bias, propaganda, social media, Latinos, ideology, politics, audience, public opinion. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS List of Figures...…………………………………………………………………………...v List of Tables.……………………………………………………………………………vii Acknowledgments............................................................................................................viii Chapter 1: INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………….….1 Chapter 2: LITERATURE REVIEW………………………………………………......8 2.1 Latino Diaspora and the ‘Americanization’ of News………………….…….........9 2.2 Religiosity..............................................................................................................16 Chapter 3: THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK..............................................................23 3.1 The Regime of Truth..............................................................................................24 3.1.1 Post-Truth and Cognitive Bias….………………………………………….29 3.2 Simulacra of News……………………………………………………….............36 3.3 The Art of the Rhetoric and Propaganda...............................................................39 Chapter 4: METHODOLOGY…………………………………………………….......47 Chapter 5: LATIN AMERICA AND STRATEGIC MISINFORMATION IN ELECTIONS DURING POST-TRUTH ERA………………………………………..51 5.1 Colombia and the Peace Agreement Referendum…………………………….....52 5.2 Presidential Election in Brazil…………………………………………………...56 5.3 Mexico and the Fake News Machinery………………………………………….58 Chapter 6: EFFECTS STUDY………………………………………………………...63 6.1 Results……………………………………………………………………………65 6.2 Discussion………………………………………………………………………..82 Chapter 7: CONCLUSION.………………………………………………………........88 References........………………………………………………………………………….94 Appendix A: SURVEY…...…………………………………………………………...106 Appendix B: MISINFORMATION………………………………………………….111 Appendix C: QUESTIONNAIRE……...……...……………………………………...120 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 2.1: “Trends in International Migrant Stock: Migrants by Origin and Destination”.………………...……………………..…………………………............….14 Figure 2.2: “Protestants More Likely to Share Faith”…………………………………..18 Figure 3.1: Representation of Manuel Noriega, a Panamanian politician, by a photographer, a magazine cover, and a videogames company…………………………..38 Figure 3.2: Some of the most common key elements under the rhetoric system proposed by Aristotle, that are used to persuade Latino and Hispanic audiences in the United States……………………………………………………………………………………..42 Figure 3.3: Photo of a massive protest against the sign of a peace agreement referendum, rejecting the imposition of gender ideology in Colombian schools……………………..45 Figure 6.1: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to the actions of Latin American governments actions toward Latinos and Hispanics…..…….67 Figure 6.2: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to the U.S. government advocating for Latinos and Hispanics…………………………………67 Figure 6.3: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to racial discrimination toward Latinos…………………………………………………………...68 Figure 6.4: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to homosexuality……………………………………………………………………………68 Figure 6.5: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to racism…………………………………………………………………………………….69 Figure 6.6: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to gender gap………………………………………………………..………………………………69 Figure 6.7: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to religiosity………………………………………………………………………………...70 Figure 6.8: Comparison between liberal and conservative participants in regard to abortion………………………….……………………………………………………….70 Figure 6.9: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Republicans hiring Mexican and Honduran workers……………….………………………...……….73 Figure 6.10: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Donald Trump having illegal immigrants as workers……………………………………………………74 vi Figure 6.11: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Pope Francis supporting Donald Trump………………………………………………………………..75 Figure 6.12: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to President of Haiti and paganism………………………………………………………………………75 Figure 6.13: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to AMLO and gender identity.......………………………………………………………………………76 Figure 6.14: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to abortion….….77 Figure 6.15: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Latin American and gender ideology………………………………………………………………….......77 Figure 6.16: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to democrats approving three-person marriage…………………………………………………...........77 Figure 6.17: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to vaccines and HIV……………………………………………………………………….……………...78 Figure 6.18: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Marco Rubio statement………………………………………………………………………………....79 Figure 6.19: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Nicolás Maduro statement…………………………………………………………………………………80 Figure 6.20: Comparison between liberal and conservative responses to Donald Trump statement…………………………………………………………………………………80 vii LIST OF TABLES Table 2.1: Representation of figures of the Peace Agreement Referendum in 2016……15 Table 2.2: “Religious Change Among Catholics from Childhood to Today”…………..20 Table 6.1: Participants in the study, including a description of their nationality, political preference and religious affiliation………………………………………………………63 Table 6.2: Liberal and conservative participants’ responses on the survey to identify political ideology……………………………………………………………………...…65 Table 6.3: Liberal and conservative participants’ responses on false stories………...…72 Table 6.4: Post-survey attitude questionnaire…………………………………………...80 viii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to thank all members of my committee, especially Dr. Nakho Kim for all his support and guidance through the process of creating this thesis. His passion and commitment to help students is immeasurable. I would also like to extend my deepest gratitude to Laura Palumbo, friend and colleague, for her constructive support in reviewing and editing this work. Finally, I want to thank Maximiliano, Nelsy, Julio, Camilo and Leidy, for encouraging me to achieve every goal I have had in my life. This accomplishment would not have been possible without them. 1 CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION Many political elections around the world have been targeted with manipulation and disinformation campaigns over the last decade, several have been reported in media and are well-known for allegations of foreign interferences. Cambridge Analytica’s scandal captured the attention of media users on how political campaigns can be manipulated using user’s data (Granville, 2018). The United Kingdom, with the Brexit campaign, and the United States during Donald Trump’s presidential elections, are perhaps the most recent and notorious cases in the world, with claims of deliberate propaganda campaigns to manipulate public