Is the alarm on deception ringing too loudly? The effects of different forms of misinformation warnings on risk perceptions of misinformation exposure

Abstract

Misinformation is widely regarded as an undermining force to European democracies. Yet, to date, empirical research shows that the amount of misinformation people encounter is rather low, and not in proportion to the strong alarming messages spread throughout society. In this light, current interventions that pre-bunk misinformation by using warning messages may disproportionally prime suspicion and result in inflated estimates of misinformation. To assess whether messages that pre-bunk misinformation result in disproportionate risk perceptions related to inaccurate or false information, and to explore the effectiveness of alternative interventions, this article relied on an online between-subjects experiment in the Netherlands ( N = 437). Our main findings indicate that exposure to a media literacy intervention does not result in higher first- or third-person risk perceptions related to misinformation exposure. However, a warning message that emphasizes the identification of reliable news while contextualizing the threats of misinformation significantly lowers perceived misinformation salience. As an important implication of our findings, we suggest that pre-bunking interventions should relativize the threats of misinformation by facilitating the recognition of honest and reliable information as an alternative path to help people identify reliable information.