The Role of News Consumption on Influencers’ Facebook Pages in Threat Perception and Political Conservatism During Times of COVID-19: A Comparative Study between the USA, Spain, and Egypt

Abstract

We explore the news consumption on influencers' Facebook pages and the impact of such exposure on shaping threat perception. Also, the correlation between the cultivated threat perception and political conservatism. We disseminated an online survey of young adults (18-35 years) in the USA, Spain, and Egypt (n=1309). Results showed that the emergence of the COVID-19 health crisis led to the revival of the legacy media's role in citizens' news consumption habits. In addition, news consumption on influencers’ Facebook pages has the same cultivation impact as consuming news on any offline platform. Nowadays young people are aware of the negative impact of their news consumption on shaping their reality. However, being aware did not mediate the cultivation effect of fear and terror due to hype news exposure. In this sense, news consumption on Facebook influencers’ pages shaped people’s security preferences and political ideology in terms of being more politically conservative.