What message features influence the intention to share misinformation about COVID-19 on social media? The role of efficacy and novelty

Song, Hayeon; So, Jiyeon; Shim, Minsun; Kim, Jieun; Kim, Eunji; Lee, Kyungha

doi:10.1016/j.chb.2022.107439

Cited by 31 publications

(15 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Inciting emotions is an essential feature of misinformation (Rochlin, 2017;Zhang et al, 2022a). Although a few studies have found a negative correlation between negative emotions and misinformation sharing (Song et al, 2023), most studies have found that negative emotions promote misinformation sharing (Ku sen and Strembeck, 2018;Pr€ ollochs et al, 2021;Wang et al, 2020a;Zhou et al, 2021b). One possible explanation is that the former is based on a randomized online experiment in which participants are randomly assigned messages.…”

Section: Factors Influencing the Spread Of Misinformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available on Emerald Insight at: https://www.emerald.com/insight/0737-8831.htm measures (Huo et al, 2018;Song et al, 2021Song et al, , 2023Zhao et al, 2022). Given the positive relationship between users' knowledge acquisition behavior and information sharing (Wang and Xie, 2022), the viral spread of misinformation may affect the accuracy of online learning, and it needs to be taken seriously.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Depth, breadth and structural virality: the influence of emotion, topic, authority and richness on misinformation spread

Meng,

Dai,

Zhao

et al. 2023

LHT

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PurposeThis study aims to investigate the mechanism of the misinformation spread based on the elaboration likelihood model and the effects of four factors – emotion, topic, authority and richness – on the depth, breadth and structural virality of misinformation spread.Design/methodology/approachThe authors collected 2,514 misinformation microblogs and 142,006 reposts from Weibo, used deep learning methods to identify the emotions and topics of misinformation and extracted the structural characteristics of the spreading network using the network analysis method.FindingsResults show that misinformation has a smaller spread size and breadth than true news but has a similar spread depth and structural virality. The differential influence of emotions on the structural characteristics of misinformation propagation was found: sadness can promote the breadth of misinformation spread, anger can promote depth and disgust can promote depth and structural virality. In addition, the international topic, the number of followers, images and videos can significantly and positively influence the misinformation's spread size, depth, breadth and structural virality.Originality/valueThe influencing factors of the structural characteristics of misinformation propagation are clarified, which is helpful for the detection and management of misinformation.

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Section: Factors Influencing the Spread Of Misinformationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Depth, breadth and structural virality: the influence of emotion, topic, authority and richness on misinformation spread

Meng,

Dai,

Zhao

et al. 2023

LHT

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“…In COVID-19 and non-COVID-19 contexts, evidence shows that messages that are perceived to be credible are also more likely to be shared ( Song et al, 2023 ; Stefanone et al, 2019 ). Sharing behavior underpins the extent to which extent to which information spreads or goes “viral” on social media, potentially influencing behavioral intentions ( Alhabash & McAlister, 2015 ).…”

Section: Cognitive and Behavioral Impacts Of Corrective Informationmentioning

confidence: 99%

One Dose Is Not Enough: The Beneficial Effect of Corrective COVID-19 Information Is Diminished If Followed by Misinformation

Craig

Vijaykumar

2023

Social Media + Society

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The World Health Organization (WHO) released a series of mythbuster infographics to combat misinformation during the COVID-19 infodemic. While the corrective effects of such debunking interventions have typically been examined in the immediate aftermath of intervention delivery; the durability of these corrective effects and their resilience against subsequent misinformation remains poorly understood. To this end, we asked younger and older adults to rate the truthfulness and credibility of 10 statements containing misinformation about common COVID-19 myths, as well as their willingness to share the statements through social media. They did this three times, before and after experimental interventions within a single study session. In keeping with established findings, exposure to the WHO’s myth-busting infographics—(a) improved participants’ ratings of the misinformation statements as untruthful and uncredible and (b) reduced their reported willingness to share the statements. However, within-subject data revealed these beneficial effects were diminished if corrective information was presented shortly by misinformation, but the effects remained when further corrective information was presented. Throughout the study, younger adults rated the misinformation statements as more truthful and credible and were more willing to share them. Our data reveal that the benefit of COVID-19 debunking interventions may be short-lived if followed shortly by misinformation. Still, the effect can be maintained in the presence of further corrective information. These outcomes provide insights into the effectiveness and durability of corrective information and can influence strategies for tackling health-related misinformation, especially in younger adults.

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“…Apart from exploring strategic measures to apply in each phase, another facet of research in this domain is how misinformation is disseminated on social media platforms such as Twitter. Features such as novelty and efficacy (Song et al, 2023) as well as the salience and trustworthiness of the source (Di Domenico et al, 2021) affect the decision to share misinformation on social media. In political contexts that are characterized through social division such as in the case of Brazil, perceiving the political opponent groups as more susceptible to believing in misinformation can make it more difficult to approach these issues (Yang and Tian, 2021).…”

Section: Misinformation and Internet Culturementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Combating misinformation with internet culture: the case of Brazilian public health organizations and their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns

Marx,

Blanco,

Amaral

et al. 2023

INTR

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Purpose This study investigates the communication behavior of public health organizations on Twitter during the COVID-19 vaccination campaign in Brazil. It contributes to the understanding of the organizational framing of health communication by showcasing several instances of framing devices that borrow from (Brazilian) internet culture. The investigation of this case extends the knowledge by providing a rich description of the organizational framing of health communication to combat misinformation in a politically charged environment.Design/methodology/approach The authors collected a Twitter dataset of 77,527 tweets and analyzed a purposeful subsample of 536 tweets that contained information provided by Brazilian public health organizations about COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. The data analysis was carried out quantitatively and qualitatively by combining social media analytics techniques and frame analysis.Findings The analysis showed that Brazilian health organizations used several framing devices that have been identified by previous literature such as hashtags, links, emojis or images. However, the analysis also unearthed hitherto unknown visual framing devices for misinformation prevention and debunking that borrow from internet culture such as “infographics,” “pop culture references” and “internet-native symbolism.”Research limitations/implications First, the identification of framing devices relating to internet culture add to our understanding of the so far little addressed framing of misinformation combat messages. The case of Brazilian health organizations provides a novel perspective to knowledge by offering a notion of internet-native symbols (e.g. humor, memes) and popular culture references for misinformation combat, including misinformation prevention. Second, this study introduces a frontier of political contextualization to misinformation research that does not relate to the partisanship of the spreaders but that relates to the political dilemmas of public organizations with a commitment to provide accurate information to citizens.Practical implications The findings inform decision-makers and public health organizations about framing devices that are tailored to internet-native audiences and can guide strategies to carry out information campaigns in misinformation-laden social media environments.Social implications The findings of this case study expose the often-overlooked cultural peculiarities of framing information campaigns on social media. The report of this study from a country in the Global South helps to contrast several assumptions and strategies that are prevalent in (health) discourses in Western societies and scholarship.Originality/value This study uncovers unconventional and barely addressed framing devices of health organizations operating in Brazil, which provides a novel perspective to the body of research on misinformation. It contributes to existing knowledge about frame analysis and broadens the understanding of frame devices borrowing from internet culture. It is a call for a frontier in misinformation research that deals with internet culture as part of organizational strategies for successful misinformation combat.

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What message features influence the intention to share misinformation about COVID-19 on social media? The role of efficacy and novelty

Cited by 31 publications

References 56 publications

Depth, breadth and structural virality: the influence of emotion, topic, authority and richness on misinformation spread

Depth, breadth and structural virality: the influence of emotion, topic, authority and richness on misinformation spread

One Dose Is Not Enough: The Beneficial Effect of Corrective COVID-19 Information Is Diminished If Followed by Misinformation

Combating misinformation with internet culture: the case of Brazilian public health organizations and their COVID-19 vaccination campaigns

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