The World Wide Web has changed the dynamics of information transmission and agenda-setting. Facts mingle with half-truths and untruths to create factitious informational blends (FIBs) that drive speculative politics. The authors specify an information environment that mirrors and contributes to a polarized political system and develop a methodology that measures the interaction of the two. They do so by examining the evolution of two comparable claims during the 2004 presidential campaign in three streams of data: (1) web pages, (2) Google searches, and (3) media coverage. They find that the web is not sufficient alone for spreading misinformation, but it leads the agenda for traditional media. They find no evidence for equality of influence in network actors.
