Bingbing Zhang

Research on the origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories has skyrocketed. Studies reveal how individual antecedents such as people’s personality traits, intrinsic motivations, and broad social-psychological processes explain this phenomenon. Fewer studies, however, explored the role of cable news exposure. This study casts a new light on how exposure to Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC relate to people’s levels of general conspiracy mentality fueled by the belief in “secret-plotting orchestrated by powerful others.” Results from K-mean cluster algorithms, ordinary least squares (OLS) causal-autoregressive regressions, and cross-lagged panel structural equation model tests show Fox News exposure fosters people’s conspiracy mentality.