Determinants of the Perceived Credibility of Rebuttals Concerning Health Misinformation

Abstract

Users provide and share information with a broad audience on different forms of social media; however, information accuracy is questionable. Currently, the health information field is severely affected by misinformation. Thus, addressing health misinformation is integral for enhancing public health. This research can help relevant practitioners (i.e., government officials, medical and health service personnel, and educators) find the most effective correctional interventions for governing health misinformation. We constructed a theoretical model for credibility-oriented determinants refuting misinformation based on the elaboration likelihood model. We aggregated 415 pieces of valid data through a questionnaire survey. A partial least squares structural equation model evaluated this research model. The results indicated that both perceived information quality and perceived source credibility can enhance perceived information credibility. Under some circumstances, the influence of information quality on information credibility may be more important than that of the information source. However, the cognitive conflict and knowledge self-confidence of information receivers weaken the influence of information quality on information credibility. In contrast, cognitive conflict can strengthen the influence of source credibility on information credibility. Further, perceived information quality can be affected by information usefulness, understandability, and relevance, while perceived source reliability can be affected by source expertise and authority.

Factors influencing fake news rebuttal acceptance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the moderating effect of cognitive ability

“…Most scholarly attention has focused on fake news on social media in terms of theoretical models of fake news diffusion ( Tambuscio et al, 2015 ), simulation models of fake news propagation ( Hui et al, 2020 ; Shrivastava et al, 2020 ; Xing et al, 2021 ), methods for fake news detection ( Ozbay & Alatas, 2020 ; Zhang & Ghorbani, 2020 ), credibility evaluation ( Ciampaglia et al, 2015 ; Sui & Zhang, 2021 ), and interventions to curtail the spread of fake news ( Hui et al, 2020 ; Pennycook et al, 2020 ). Rebuttals have been a subject of growing scholarly attention as a possible approach to mitigating online fake news ( Pal et al, 2020 ).…”

“…The rebuttal of fake news belongs to the category of persuasion information, which aims to correct the public's misconceptions and provide knowledge about the truth of matters ( Sui & Zhang, 2021 ). The ELM is among the most authoritative dual-process theories and describes the change in attitudes in the field of knowledge persuasion ( Petty & Cacioppo, 1986 , 2012 ), with “attitude” defined as an evaluation of a target object, person, behavior, or event on a scale reflecting some degree of good or bad, such as favor/disfavor, approval/disapproval, liking/disliking, or similar reactions ( Eagly & Chaiken, 1993 ; Griffith et al, 2018 ).…”

“…On the one hand, the “authority principle” refers to the tendency of individuals to comply with the recommendations or directives of authority figures, and is a fundamental social influence principle ( Cialdini, 2001 ). In general, the authority principle functions such that the higher the level of authority, the more positive attitudes (e.g., toward fake news rebuttal acceptance) should be ( Sui & Zhang, 2021 ). For instance, previous research suggests that individuals are more influenced by a medical expert or official authority, such as tweets generated by the American Heart Association ( Westerman et al, 2014 ).…”

“…In addition, previous research has noted that without a nuanced understanding of the cognitive effects of fake news on individuals, the array of possibilities against which society must guard itself becomes insuperable ( Bastick, 2021 ). Thus, to successfully correct users’ cognitive errors, rebuttals must convince them ( Sui & Zhang, 2021 ). The ELM posits that the ability and motivation to process the information determine which route individuals will employ—central or peripheral—and those individual attributes determine the relative effectiveness of these processes ( Angst & Agarwal, 2009 ).…”

Health-related fake news on social media platforms: A systematic literature review

“…Some of the studies explored if SMPs were used during this period to disseminate information (Seltzer et al, 2017) and which technologies and strategies can be implemented to prevent (Teoh et al, 2018) and control certain diseases. Finally, 8 (11%) studies explored tools related to health-related fake news, seeking to understand which resources are more efficient to contain the fake news on SMPs (Gesser-Edelsburg et al, 2018; Sui and Zhang, 2021; Vraga and Bode, 2018).…”