Quantifying the “infodemic”: People turned to trustworthy news outlets during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic

Altay, Sacha; Nielsen, Rasmus Kleis; Fletcher, Richard

doi:10.51685/jqd.2022.020

Cited by 43 publications

(41 citation statements)

References 24 publications

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“…In contrast, taking two UK news brands as examples, BBC News Online and MailOnline each have an average monthly website/app reach of more than 50% of the digital population in the UK (Thurman et al, 2021). This finding is in line with previous research that suggests that niche and untrustworthy news media reach small audiences compared to mainstream media via websites/apps in Europe and the United States (see Altay et al, 2022;Nelson & Taneja, 2018). Comparing the website/app reach of foreign news outlets originating in an authoritarian country, such as Russia, with the website/app reach of domestic news outlets in a democratic country, such as the UK, has limitations, but it does help show the relative size of RT/Sputnik's audiences.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

“…For example, it would be interesting to compare, in Western democracies, the behavior of the website/app audiences of the two outlets with that of alternative, quality, and other foreign communication outlets from authoritarian countries. Such research could advance extant literature on fake and alternative news outlets (see Altay et al, 2022;Müller & Schulz, 2021;Nelson & Taneja, 2018;Schwarzenegger, 2021Schwarzenegger, , 2022Taneja, 2020) and inform debates on the consequences of RT/Sputnik's presence in democratic public spheres.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

“…Television companies in Australia (Meade, 2022) and the United States (Darcy, 2022), as well as the Canadian government (Government of Canada, 2022), banned RT's TV broadcasting for its pro-Russian coverage of the war in Ukraine (Darcy, 2022;Meade, 2022) and, in the case of Canada, noncompliance with national broadcasting standards (Government of Canada, 2022). The Council of the European Union (EU) (Council of the EU, 2022; European Union, 2022) and the UK (GOV.UK, 2022) went one step further and banned the dissemination of RT/Sputnik's content via any means, including the outlets' official websites and mobile apps, though extant research suggests that niche news media reach small audiences compared to mainstream media via websites/apps in Europe and the United States (see Altay et al, 2022;Nelson & Taneja, 2018). EU and UK policymakers justified their decision by claiming that RT/Sputnik are part of Russia's disinformation campaign and have been essential to the preparation and support of Russia's invasion of Ukraine (European Union, 2022; GOV.UK, 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping the website and mobile app audiences of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik, across 21 countries

et al. 2022

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Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, policymakers worldwide have taken measures to curb the reach of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik. Mapping the audiences of these outlets in 21 countries, we show that in the quarter before the invasion, at least via their official websites and mobile apps, neither outlet reached more than 5% of the digital populations of any of these countries each month. Averaged across all countries, both outlets’ website and mobile app reach remained approximately constant between 2019 and 2021, was higher for men, and increased with audiences’ age.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 84%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Mapping the website and mobile app audiences of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik, across 21 countries

et al. 2022

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“…According to estimates from Facebook itself, in April to June 2020, 98 million labels were attached to spurious COVID-19 posts on the platform and 7 million additional posts were removed (Kreps & Kriner, 2022). Further, a recent study estimated that throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, approximately 2% of web traffic engagement and 14% of Facebook engagement in the US, UK, France, and Germany was with 'untrustworthy' news outlets (Altay et al, 2022). Despite this large absolute volume, research suggests that misinformation may only comprise a small portion of individuals' daily media intake.…”

Section: Mainmentioning

confidence: 99%

Psychological inoculation protects against the social media infodemic

McPhedran¹,

Ratajczak²,

Mawby³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Misinformation can have a profound detrimental impact on populations’ wellbeing. In this large UK-based online experiment (n=2,430), we assessed the performance of false tag and inoculation interventions in protecting against different forms of misinformation (‘variants’). While previous experiments have used perception- or intention-based outcome measures, we presented participants with real-life misinformation posts in a social media platform simulation and measured their engagement, a more ecologically valid approach. Our pre-registered mixed-effects models indicated that both interventions reduced engagement with misinformation, but inoculation was most effective. However, random differences analysis revealed that the protection conferred by inoculation differed across posts. Moderation analysis indicated that immunity provided by inoculation is robust to variation in individuals’ cognitive reflection.This study provides novel evidence on the general effectiveness of inoculation interventions over false tags, social media platforms’ current approach. Given inoculation’s effect heterogeneity, a concert of interventions will likely be required for future safeguarding efforts.

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“…Discussions around the spread of fake news often allude to concerns that exposure to online misinformation might have significant consequences for public health or democratic institutions. This concern has been magnified with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and the associated "infodemic" [3][4][5][6]. As a result, a large body of research has investigated the effect of fake news and misinformation on participants' memories, beliefs, attitudes and behaviours.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Debriefing works: Successful retraction of misinformation following a fake news study

Greene

Murphy

2023

PLoS ONE

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In recent years there has been an explosion of research on misinformation, often involving experiments where participants are presented with fake news stories and subsequently debriefed. In order to avoid potential harm to participants or society, it is imperative that we establish whether debriefing procedures remove any lasting influence of misinformation. In the current study, we followed up with 1547 participants one week after they had been exposed to fake news stories about COVID-19 and then provided with a detailed debriefing. False memories and beliefs for previously-seen fake stories declined from the original study, suggesting that the debrief was effective. Moreover, the debriefing resulted in reduced false memories and beliefs for novel fake stories, suggesting a broader impact on participants’ willingness to accept misinformation. Small effects of misinformation on planned health behaviours observed in the original study were also eliminated at follow-up. Our findings suggest that when a careful and thorough debriefing procedure is followed, researchers can safely and ethically conduct misinformation research on sensitive topics.

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Quantifying the “infodemic”: People turned to trustworthy news outlets during the 2020 coronavirus pandemic

Cited by 43 publications

References 24 publications

Mapping the website and mobile app audiences of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik, across 21 countries

Mapping the website and mobile app audiences of Russia’s foreign communication outlets, RT and Sputnik, across 21 countries

Psychological inoculation protects against the social media infodemic

Debriefing works: Successful retraction of misinformation following a fake news study

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