The COVID-19 pandemic has been paired with a global misinformation “infodemic.” Citizens in authoritarian countries, where most media is state controlled, often do not have access to credible information sources to help combat misinformation. In fact, the news media in these countries may be the primary drivers of misinformation while digital media may be sources of more accurate information. We test how news and digital media in an authoritarian context are associated with endorsing misinformation while introducing the concept of informational learned helplessness as an additional factor driving inaccurate beliefs. We test our hypotheses employing data from a nationally representative telephone survey of the Russian public (N = 1600) and discuss the implications of our findings for Russian attitudes about COVID-19 vaccination.

中文翻译：

---

俄罗斯新闻媒体、数字媒体、信息习得性无助和对 COVID-19 错误信息的信仰

COVID-19 大流行伴随着全球错误信息“信息流行病”。大多数媒体受国家控制的威权国家的公民通常无法获得可靠的信息来源来帮助打击错误信息。事实上，这些国家的新闻媒体可能是错误信息的主要驱动因素，而数字媒体可能是更准确信息的来源。我们测试了威权主义背景下的新闻和数字媒体如何与支持错误信息相关联，同时引入了信息习得性无助的概念作为驱动不准确信念的另一个因素。我们使用来自俄罗斯公众（N = 1600）的具有全国代表性的电话调查的数据来检验我们的假设，并讨论我们的研究结果对俄罗斯对 COVID-19 疫苗接种的态度的影响。