https://doi.org/10.1177/10776990231171929 Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly 1–22 © 2023 AEJMC Article reuse guidelines: sagepub.com/journals-permissions DOI: 10.1177/10776990231171929 http://journals.sagepub.com/home/jmq Regular Issue: Original Article Cable News Use and Conspiracy Theories: Exploring Fox News, CNN, and MSNBC Effects on People’s Conspiracy Mentality Homero Gil de Zúñiga 1,2,3 , Rebecca Scheffauer 1 , and Bingbing Zhang 1,2 Abstract 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. Keywords TV cable news, FOX news, conspiracy theories, conspiracy beliefs, cross-lagged structural equation model, K-mean cluster algorithms The origin, dissemination, and support of conspiracy theories have been present in research for over half of a century (Baum, 1960; Seton-Watson, 1960), with the topic garnering increasing interest since 2008 (Knight & Butter, 2018). Today, conspiracy 1 University of Salamanca, Spain 2 Pennsylvania State University, State College, USA 3 Universidad Diego Portales, Santiago, Chile Corresponding Author: Homero Gil de Zúñiga, Political Science, University of Salamanca, Casa del Bedel, c/Benedicto XVI, 22 Despacho 26, 37008 Salamanca, Spain. Emails: hgz@usal.es; hgzn@psu.edu 1171929JMQ XX X 10.1177/10776990231171929Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly XX(X)Gil de Zúñiga et al. research-article 2023