Assessing the credibility of COVID-19 vaccine mis/disinformation in online discussion.

Reijo Savolainen

doi:10.1177/01655515211040653

Abstract

This study examines how the credibility of the content of mis- or disinformation, as well as the believability of authors creating such information is assessed in online discussion. More specifically, the investigation was focused on the credibility of mis- or disinformation about COVID-19 vaccines. To this end, a sample of 1887 messages posted to a Reddit discussion group was scrutinised by means of qualitative content analysis. The findings indicate that in the assessment of the author's credibility, the most important criteria are his or her reputation, expertise and honesty in argumentation. In the judgement of the credibility of the content of mis/disinformation, objectivity of information and plausibility of arguments are highly important. The findings highlight that in the assessment of the credibility of mis/disinformation, the author's qualities such as poor reputation, incompetency and dishonesty are particularly significant because they trigger expectancies about how the information content created by the author is judged.

Highlights

Many of the recent investigations on information credibility focus on the user-generated data available in social media platforms [1,2,3]
Of the codes assigned to credibility assessments, a slight majority (53.9%) dealt with the credibility of the authors presenting claims about the COVID-19 vaccines, while the share of codes assigned to the credibility of the information content was somewhat lower, that is, 46%
The quantitative overview suggests that the credibility assessment of claims potentially containing mis/disinformation is based on the use of a few key criteria, most notably author reputation, his or her honesty and expertise, as well as the objectivity of information and the plausibility of arguments

Summary

Introduction

Many of the recent investigations on information credibility focus on the user-generated data available in social media platforms [1,2,3]. The growing interest in credibility issues is mainly due to the proliferation of mis- and disinformation, ranging from fake news to false rumours about the COVID-19 pandemic. From this perspective, COVID-19 is a interesting case because there are still many unanswered questions about the disease and its effective prevention, making it easy for rumours to take root in the absence of scientific certainty. The contestation of the expertise of medical professionals offers a fertile ground for the growth of scepticism and reinforces ‘folk wisdom’ about vaccination in the social media forums [5]

Results

Discussion

Conclusion