The second day at the 2026 International Communication Association conference in Cape Town starts for me with a session on mis- and disinformation, and the first speaker is Xiaxin Huang. Her work asks how national identity shapes emotions towards the nation, and how such emotions in turn affect misinformation beliefs – and whether these pathways are different for Republicans and Democrats.
This builds on a multi-wave 2024 US survey, which asked about aspects like national identity, national pride, negative national affect, and misinformation beliefs (relating to the Hunter Biden laptop story and the 6 January 2021 coup attempt). National pride and negative national affect differed widely between Democrats and Republicans; this means they interpret the nation very differently (at the time, Republicans held a national crisis view, Democrats had a reassurance narrative).
Negative national affect also strong predicted misinformation beliefs on topics including Hunter Biden, 6 January, vaccines, and climate change, while national pride predicted lower misinformation beliefs. In all this there is strong divergence between the different partisans, and misinformation beliefs are tightly connected to the threat-based national narratives held by Republicans. Scientific misinformation follows similar patterns: science has become emotionally politicised along partisan lines.
In other words, national identity is no longer uniform; beliefs in threats to the nation lead to greater endorsement for misinformation.
