Misinformation Research Research Articles

Evolutionary biology as a frontier for research on misinformation.

The field of misinformation studies has experienced a boom of scholarship in recent years. Buoyed by the emergence of information operations surrounding the 2016 election and the rise of so-called "fake news," researchers hailing from fields ranging from philosophy to computer science have taken up the challenge of detecting, analyzing, and theorizing false and misleading information online. In an attempt to understand the spread of misinformation online, researchers have adapted concepts from different disciplines. Concepts from epidemiology, for example, have opened doors to thinking about spread, contagion, and resistance. The life sciences offer concepts and theories to further extend what we know about how misinformation adapts; by viewing information as an organism within a complex ecosystem, we can better understand why some narratives succeed and others fail. Collaborations between misinformation researchers and life scientists to develop responsible adaptations of fitness models can bolster misinformation research.

Why accurate info matters in agri-food and climate change

Why accurate info matters in agri-food and climate change Dr Ataharul Chowdhury from the School of Environmental Design & Rural Development explores the importance of an agri-food, climate change, and rural misinformation research platform to combat information disorder and facilitate agri-food innovation and sustainable development. While information is an essential element for facilitating innovation and sustainable development, it is also evident that information can be politicized and used intentionally to favor ideology, values, and support groups as well as benefit economically. This creates many challenges for inclusive, sustainable, and climate-resilient food systems. The intentional nature of information has been evident since the early stages of civilization. The intentional nature of information creates division among nations, fuels wars and conflicts, and impedes development – some recent examples include the Middle Eastern war, Ukraine wars, and COVID-19.

Misinformation research needs ecological validity.

Misinformation research needs ecological validity.

Health Misinformation Research

ABSTRACTHealth misinformation research has dramatically increased since the start of the COVID‐19 pandemic, although not all of this work has taken advantage of the rich theoretical and methodological background information science as a discipline has to contribute. This panel presentation will feature information scientists conducting health misinformation research from and in various settings, to showcase the value and range of information science approaches to health misinformation research. Each panelist will describe their work in the area of understanding and/or addressing health misinformation in institutions such as libraries and schools, health systems and interventions such as vaccination or public health promotion, or the general public in their online or offline information environments. Presentations will also highlight the ways researchers are applying information science theory, methods, and/or approaches to health misinformation topics, as well as lessons panelists have learned through this work. The panel will conclude with an interactive audience discussion that will center on the ways in which information science can help understand and address health misinformation challenges around the world.

Liars know they are lying: differentiating disinformation from disagreement

Mis- and disinformation pose substantial societal challenges, and have thus become the focus of a substantive field of research. However, the field of misinformation research has recently come under scrutiny on two fronts. First, a political response has emerged, claiming that misinformation research aims to censor conservative voices. Second, some scholars have questioned the utility of misinformation research altogether, arguing that misinformation is not sufficiently identifiable or widespread to warrant much concern or action. Here, we rebut these claims. We contend that the spread of misinformation—and in particular willful disinformation—is demonstrably harmful to public health, evidence-informed policymaking, and democratic processes. We also show that disinformation and outright lies can often be identified and differ from good-faith political contestation. We conclude by showing how misinformation and disinformation can be at least partially mitigated using a variety of empirically validated, rights-preserving methods that do not involve censorship.

A multilingual analysis of pro Russian misinformation on Twitter during the Russian invasion of Ukraine

The Russian government has long since engaged in an information campaign of propaganda and disinformation as a major part of foreign policy. This has been taken to new heights since the invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. In this study, we investigate pro-Russian misinformation within the opening weeks of the invasion in 6 languages: English, Japanese, Spanish, French, German, and Korean. Using Twitter data, we apply a combination of network and language embedding models to identify popular topics of misinformation amongst users in each language. Despite English users forming the most dominant language base on Twitter, we find that the popularity of misinformation in Japanese regularly outstrips English for certain topics. Misinformation shared by Spanish users is also over-represented in proportion to its much smaller user base. Our results provide insight into the current state of misinformation in each language. While we discuss some of the possible drivers behind the factors such as language over-representation, our study also highlights the need for further cross-lingual misinformation research in order to better understand this phenomena in a truly global context.

Merging AI Incidents Research with Political Misinformation Research: Introducing the Political Deepfakes Incidents Database

This article presents the Political Deepfakes Incidents Database (PDID), a collection of politically-salient deepfakes, encompassing synthetically-created videos, images, and less-sophisticated `cheapfakes.' The project is driven by the rise of generative AI in politics, ongoing policy efforts to address harms, and the need to connect AI incidents and political communication research. The database contains political deepfake content, metadata, and researcher-coded descriptors drawn from political science, public policy, communication, and misinformation studies. It aims to help reveal the prevalence, trends, and impact of political deepfakes, such as those featuring major political figures or events. The PDID can benefit policymakers, researchers, journalists, fact-checkers, and the public by providing insights into deepfake usage, aiding in regulation, enabling in-depth analyses, supporting fact-checking and trust-building efforts, and raising awareness of political deepfakes. It is suitable for research and application on media effects, political discourse, AI ethics, technology governance, media literacy, and countermeasures.

Misinformation and Literacies in the Era of Generative Artificial Intelligence: A Brief Overview and a Call for Future Research

Misinformation constitutes a societal practice and challenge that necessitates unwavering attention worldwide. In this essay, we discussed the theoretical advancement and empirical evidence in misinformation research, encompassing a review of definitions of misinformation, research orientations, research perspectives, and vulnerable groups. We then reviewed the misinformation fueled by generative artificial intelligence (AI) and the evolving conceptualization of literacy. To counter AI-fueled misinformation, we argue that the development of ethical AI necessitates regulations from AI practitioners and legislation, and ethical uses of AI require efforts in AI literacy education and research. The AI literacy should include (a) users’ understanding and critical evaluation of knowledge, values, and cultures within which AI systems function, and their implications on the AI-generated content, (b) users’ strategic interpretation and proper use of AI-generated content, and (c) users’ utilization of feedback mechanisms to promote institutional management of the AI power.

Misinformation, Risk Perceptions, and Intention to Seek Information About Masks: The Moderating Roles of Gender and Reflective Judgment

ABSTRACT The current study has three main purposes: to examine 1) the impact of theory-driven corrective messages using individual vs. collective frames on information-seeking intention 2) the mediating role of risk perceptions and 3) the moderating role of reflection and gender. Our findings from a randomized experimental study and Hayes’ moderated, moderated mediation model show collective frames were associated with high-risk perceptions among women, which in turn led to higher information seeking intention. The second moderator reveals that people who scored higher on reflection were more willing to seek information. Our findings have critical implications for misinformation research by demonstrating the importance of theoretically driven messages in understanding misperceptions as well as people’s information seeking behavior.

The Effects of Misinformation Identification in the Computer-mediated Communication Through Media Literacy Intervention

Computer-mediated communication is an integral form of recent communication that allows people to gain information quickly and improve the engagement of information. However, computer-mediated communication also provides a medium for misinformation production and dissemination, which is caused by the need for a fact-checking mechanism, the distribution mechanism of systems, and the difference in the media literacy level of participants. Therefore, this study aims to explore misinformation identification's effect in computer-mediated communication's computer programming section by evaluating and analysing past research to enhance the misinformation research view. Media literacy intervention as a tool to improve the personal capacity for misinformation identification. Results have shown that the capacity of misinformation identification can work in the computer programming section to enhance the fact-checking system and improve the accuracy of information resources, content, and interactions in computer-mediated communication.

A pandemic of COVID-19 mis- and disinformation: manual and automatic topic analysis of the literature

Abstract Objective: Social media’s arrival eased the sharing of mis- and disinformation. False information proved challenging throughout the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic with many clinicians and researchers analyzing the “infodemic.” We systemically reviewed and synthesized COVID-19 mis- and disinformation literature, identifying the prevalence and content of false information and exploring mitigation and prevention strategies. Design: We identified and analyzed publications on COVID-19-related mis- and disinformation published from March 1, 2020, to December 31, 2022, in PubMed. We performed a manual topic review of the abstracts along with automated topic modeling to organize and compare the different themes. We also conducted sentiment (ranked −3 to +3) and emotion analysis (rated as predominately happy, sad, angry, surprised, or fearful) of the abstracts. Results: We reviewed 868 peer-reviewed scientific publications of which 639 (74%) had abstracts available for automatic topic modeling and sentiment analysis. More than a third of publications described mitigation and prevention-related issues. The mean sentiment score for the publications was 0.685, and 56% of studies had a negative sentiment (fear and sadness as the most common emotions). Conclusions: Our comprehensive analysis reveals a significant proliferation of dis- and misinformation research during the COVID-19 pandemic. Our study illustrates the pivotal role of social media in amplifying false information. Research into the infodemic was characterized by negative sentiments. Combining manual and automated topic modeling provided a nuanced understanding of the complexities of COVID-19-related misinformation, highlighting themes such as the source and effect of misinformation, and strategies for mitigation and prevention.

Source credibility effects in misinformation research: A review and primer

Understanding the role that perceived source credibility plays in individuals’ responses to misinformation could help in shedding light on the effects of misinformation exposure and aid in making interventions aimed at tackling its negative consequences more effective. Yet, while persuasion research shows that perceived source credibility consistently predicts attitude change upon exposure to persuasive messages, research examining effects of source credibility in misinformation contexts has yielded inconsistent findings. We conducted a systematic review of misinformation research investigating source credibility effects (NStudies = 91, NParticipants = 64,162) and coded various characteristics of individual reported effects (NEffects = 162) to provide a narrative synthesis of the literature and identify potential causes of inconsistent findings. Our synthesis suggests that conceptual factors, such as the conceptualisation of source credibility and its constituent dimensions, underexplored moderators, and methodological factors, such as the operationalisation of source credibility and the relevance of stimulus materials, could explain discrepancies in source credibility effects in misinformation contexts. We provide recommendations for how to conceptualise and operationalise source credibility in a more systematic way and recommend promising avenues for future research that could aid the development of much-needed theoretical frameworks of source credibility effects in misinformation contexts.

Misinformation in Communication Studies: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

The dissemination of misinformation is a concern for political parties, news consumers and scholars of communication, and the purpose of this paper is to explore the current state, development, and important issues of misinformation research in the field of communication over the past decade. This study analysed 768 SSCI articles from the year 2014-2023 through the Web of Science database using bibliometrics. The study found that the number of published papers peaked in 2022 with 191 SSCI papers, and is considered the highest number recorded. Michael Hameleers, a scholar from the University of Amsterdam, U.S., are the largest contributor in research literature on misinformation in the field of communication at the macro, meso, and micro levels, respectively; meanwhile, "Health Communication" was the largest contributing journal. Three national level cooperation networks were seen through the cooperation network analysis, which were the United States of America, European and Asian cooperation networks; and from the institutional perspective, four basic cooperation networks were formed; whilst from the author perspective, the largest cooperation network had 22 researchers. These findings indicated that there is well-established cooperation network of authors research about misinformation in communication field. Through the citation and co-citation analysis, it was concluded that the most influential researcher in the field of communication is Emily K. Vraga. Through the cluster analysis of communication area, the misinformation studies was mainly found in the research of sharing information, governance, health, and politics. This study provides a macro framework for future researchers to examine pertinent issues of misinformation in the field of communication. Keywords: Misinformation, communication, bibliometric analysis, social media, research scholar.

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

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.

All the President’s Lies: Repeated False Claims and Public Opinion

Abstract A hallmark of the Trump presidency was a stream of false statements, many of which were repeated dozens or even hundreds of times. But whether (and to what extent) this repetition translates into public misperceptions remains an open question. We address this question by leveraging the most comprehensive data on Trump’s repetition of misleading claims during his presidency. In a national survey asking Americans to evaluate the truth of claims from this database, we find a clear partisan asymmetry. An increase in the number of repetitions of a falsehood corresponded with increased belief among Republicans but decreased belief among Democrats. We also find an important moderating role of media consumption. The effects of repetition were larger when people consumed more right-leaning cable news and when falsehoods were mostly repeated on Twitter. We discuss implications of these findings for misinformation research.

Countering Misinformation

Abstract: Developing effective interventions to counter misinformation is an urgent goal, but it also presents conceptual, empirical, and practical difficulties, compounded by the fact that misinformation research is in its infancy. This paper provides researchers and policymakers with an overview of which individual-level interventions are likely to influence the spread of, susceptibility to, or impact of misinformation. We review the evidence for the effectiveness of four categories of interventions: boosting (psychological inoculation, critical thinking, and media and information literacy); nudging (accuracy primes and social norms nudges); debunking (fact-checking); and automated content labeling. In each area, we assess the empirical evidence, key gaps in knowledge, and practical considerations. We conclude with a series of recommendations for policymakers and tech companies to ensure a comprehensive approach to tackling misinformation.

Correcting climate change misinformation on social media: Reciprocal relationships between correcting others, anger, and environmental activism

Although correcting others on social media is a frequently used strategy to combat the spreading of misinformation, we lack knowledge on the drivers of such corrective efforts. We theorize that climate change-related anger and political environmental activism can explain why people chose to correct others on social media. We further assume reciprocal relationships in which the act of correcting others predicts anger and political environmental activism. By doing so, we extend the concept of expression effects of correcting others from a cognitive level that predicts activism to an affective level (i.e., predicting anger). Structural equation modeling using data from a two-wave panel survey (N = 549) showed reciprocal relations between political environmental activism and correcting perceived climate change misinformation. Correction was further positively related to climate change-related anger, which, in turn, was positively related to political environmental activism. The data showed neither support for climate change-related anger predicting correction nor for political environmental activism predicting anger. This paper discusses the proposed extension of expression effects to an affective level in the context of misinformation research.

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

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.

Best Practices for Ethical Conduct of Misinformation Research

Abstract: Misinformation can have noxious impacts on cognition, fostering the formation of false beliefs, retroactively distorting memory for events, and influencing reasoning and decision-making even after it has been credibly corrected. Researchers investigating the impacts of real-world misinformation are therefore faced with an ethical issue: they must consider the immediate and long-term consequences of exposing participants to false claims. In this paper, we first present an overview of the ethical risks associated with real-world misinformation. We then report results from a scoping review of ethical practices in misinformation research. We investigated (1) the extent to which researchers report the details of their ethical practices, including issues of informed consent and debriefing, and (2) the specific steps that researchers report taking to protect participants from the consequences of misinformation exposure. We found that fewer than 30% of misinformation papers report any debriefing, and almost no authors assessed the effectiveness of their debriefing procedure. Building on the findings from this review, we evaluate the balance of risk versus reward currently operating in this field and propose a set of guidelines for best practices. Our ultimate goal is to allow researchers the freedom to investigate questions of considerable scientific and societal impact while meeting their ethical obligations to participants.

“Masks do not work”: COVID-19 misperceptions and theory-driven corrective strategies on Facebook

PurposeOne of the most prolific areas of misinformation research is examining corrective strategies in messaging. The main purposes of the current study are to examine the effects of (1) partisan media (2) credibility perceptions and emotional reactions and (3) theory driven corrective messages on people's misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing behaviors.Design/methodology/approachThe authors used a randomized experimental design to test the hypotheses. The data were collected via the survey firm Lucid. The number of participants was 485. The study was conducted using Qualtrics after the research project was exempt by the Institutional Research Board of a large University in the US. The authors conducted an online experiment with four conditions, narrative versus statistics and individual versus collective. The manipulation messages were constructed as screenshots from Facebook.FindingsThe findings of this study show that higher exposure to liberal media was associated with lower misperceptions, whereas higher credibility perceptions of and positive reactions toward the misinformation post and negative emotions toward the correction comment were associated with higher misperceptions. Moreover, the findings showed that participants in the narrative and collective-frame condition had the lowest misperceptions.Originality/valueThe authors tested theory driven misinformation corrective messages to understand the impact of these messages and multiple related variables on misperceptions about COVID-19 mask wearing. This study contributes to the existing misinformation correction literature by investigating the explanatory power of the two well-established media effects theories on misinformation correction messaging and by identifying essential individual characteristics that should be considered when evaluating how misperceptions about the COVID-19 crisis works and gets reduced.Peer reviewThe peer review history for this article is available at: https://publons.com/publon/10.1108/OIR-11-2021-0600