IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/cog/meanco/v9y2021i1p120-133.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

You’re Definitely Wrong, Maybe: Correction Style Has Minimal Effect on Corrections of Misinformation Online

Author

Listed:
  • Cameron Martel

    (Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)

  • Mohsen Mosleh

    (Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA / Science, Innovation, Technology, and Entrepreneurship Department, University of Exeter, UK)

  • David G. Rand

    (Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA / Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA)

Abstract

How can online communication most effectively respond to misinformation posted on social media? Recent studies examining the content of corrective messages provide mixed results—several studies suggest that politer, hedged messages may increase engagement with corrections, while others favor direct messaging which does not shed doubt on the credibility of the corrective message. Furthermore, common debunking strategies often include keeping the message simple and clear, while others recommend including a detailed explanation of why the initial misinformation is incorrect. To shed more light on how correction style affects correction efficacy, we manipulated both correction strength (direct, hedged) and explanatory depth (simple explanation, detailed explanation) in response to participants from Lucid ( N = 2,228) who indicated they would share a false story in a survey experiment. We found minimal evidence suggesting that correction strength or depth affects correction engagement, both in terms of likelihood of replying, and accepting or resisting corrective information. However, we do find that analytic thinking and actively open-minded thinking are associated with greater acceptance of information in response to corrective messages, regardless of correction style. Our results help elucidate the efficacy of user-generated corrections of misinformation on social media.

Suggested Citation

  • Cameron Martel & Mohsen Mosleh & David G. Rand, 2021. "You’re Definitely Wrong, Maybe: Correction Style Has Minimal Effect on Corrections of Misinformation Online," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 120-133.
  • Handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v9:y:2021:i:1:p:120-133
    DOI: 10.17645/mac.v9i1.3519
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.cogitatiopress.com/mediaandcommunication/article/view/3519
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.17645/mac.v9i1.3519?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," NBER Working Papers 23089, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Thomson, Keela S. & Oppenheimer, Daniel M., 2016. "Investigating an alternate form of the cognitive reflection test," Judgment and Decision Making, Cambridge University Press, vol. 11(1), pages 99-113, January.
    3. Gordon Pennycook & Adam Bear & Evan T. Collins & David G. Rand, 2020. "The Implied Truth Effect: Attaching Warnings to a Subset of Fake News Headlines Increases Perceived Accuracy of Headlines Without Warnings," Management Science, INFORMS, vol. 66(11), pages 4944-4957, November.
    4. Mohsen Mosleh & Gordon Pennycook & David G Rand, 2020. "Self-reported willingness to share political news articles in online surveys correlates with actual sharing on Twitter," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(2), pages 1-9, February.
    5. Jon Roozenbeek & Sander Linden, 2019. "Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    6. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Cameron Martel & Mohsen Mosleh & David G. Rand, 2021. "You’re Definitely Wrong, Maybe: Correction Style Has Minimal Effect on Corrections of Misinformation Online," Media and Communication, Cogitatio Press, vol. 9(1), pages 120-133.
    2. Roger D. Magarey & Christina M. Trexler, 2020. "Information: a missing component in understanding and mitigating social epidemics," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 7(1), pages 1-11, December.
    3. Emeric Henry & Ekaterina Zhuravskaya & Sergei Guriev, 2022. "Checking and Sharing Alt-Facts," American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, American Economic Association, vol. 14(3), pages 55-86, August.
    4. Andranik Tumasjan, 2024. "The many faces of social media in business and economics research: Taking stock of the literature and looking into the future," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 38(2), pages 389-426, April.
    5. Sarah Spiekermann & Hanna Krasnova & Oliver Hinz & Annika Baumann & Alexander Benlian & Henner Gimpel & Irina Heimbach & Antonia Köster & Alexander Maedche & Björn Niehaves & Marten Risius & Manuel Tr, 2022. "Values and Ethics in Information Systems," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(2), pages 247-264, April.
    6. Thomas Renault & David Restrepo Amariles & Aurore Troussel, 2024. "Collaboratively adding context to social media posts reduces the sharing of false news," Papers 2404.02803, arXiv.org.
    7. Jay J. Van Bavel & Katherine Baicker & Paulo S. Boggio & Valerio Capraro & Aleksandra Cichocka & Mina Cikara & Molly J. Crockett & Alia J. Crum & Karen M. Douglas & James N. Druckman & John Drury & Oe, 2020. "Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 4(5), pages 460-471, May.
    8. Patricia L. Moravec & Antino Kim & Alan R. Dennis & Randall K. Minas, 2022. "Do You Really Know if It’s True? How Asking Users to Rate Stories Affects Belief in Fake News on Social Media," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 33(3), pages 887-907, September.
    9. Bermes, Alena, 2021. "Information overload and fake news sharing: A transactional stress perspective exploring the mitigating role of consumers’ resilience during COVID-19," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).
    10. Tuval Danenberg & Drew Fudenberg, 2024. "Endogenous Attention and the Spread of False News," Papers 2406.11024, arXiv.org.
    11. Gonzalo Cisternas & Jorge Vásquez, 2022. "Misinformation in Social Media: The Role of Verification Incentives," Staff Reports 1028, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Gruener, Sven, 2021. "Susceptibility to misinformation: a study of climate change, Covid-19, and artificial intelligence," SocArXiv x8efq_v1, Center for Open Science.
    13. Ioan Batrancea & Mehmet Ali Balcı & Larissa M. Batrancea & Ömer Akgüller & Horia Tulai & Mircea-Iosif Rus & Ema Speranta Masca & Ioan Dan Morar, 2024. "Topic Analysis of Social Media Posts during the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Tweets in Turkish," Journal of the Knowledge Economy, Springer;Portland International Center for Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), vol. 15(3), pages 12361-12391, September.
    14. Stefano Carattini & Anomitro Chatterjee & Todd Cherry, 2024. "Voting and Information: Evidence from a Field Experiment," CESifo Working Paper Series 11599, CESifo.
    15. Leopoldo Fergusson & Carlos Molina, 2020. "Facebook Causes Protests," HiCN Working Papers 323, Households in Conflict Network.
    16. Dean Neu & Gregory D. Saxton & Abu S. Rahaman, 2022. "Social Accountability, Ethics, and the Occupy Wall Street Protests," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 180(1), pages 17-31, September.
    17. Robbett, Andrea & Matthews, Peter Hans, 2018. "Partisan bias and expressive voting," Journal of Public Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C), pages 107-120.
    18. Henrik Skaug Sætra, 2021. "AI in Context and the Sustainable Development Goals: Factoring in the Unsustainability of the Sociotechnical System," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(4), pages 1-19, February.
    19. Fathey Mohammed & Nabil Hasan Al-Kumaim & Ahmed Ibrahim Alzahrani & Yousef Fazea, 2023. "The Impact of Social Media Shared Health Content on Protective Behavior against COVID-19," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(3), pages 1-16, January.
    20. Bartosz Wilczek, 2020. "Misinformation and herd behavior in media markets: A cross-national investigation of how tabloids’ attention to misinformation drives broadsheets’ attention to misinformation in political and business," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-22, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:cog:meanco:v9:y:2021:i:1:p:120-133. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: António Vieira or IT Department (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cogitatiopress.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.