Engaging with misinformation and misinformation corrective messages on social media: Examining the role of source cues, social endorsement cues, and prior attitudes

ABSTRACT

This study seeks to understand how individuals engage with misinformation and corrective messages about genetically modified (GM) food safety on social media. Based on a 2 (expert source vs. social peer source) x 2 (high social endorsements vs. low social endorsements) between-subject experiment (N = 264), this study examined the role of source cues, social endorsement cues, and prior attitudes in influencing individuals’ social media engagements. Results found that individuals selectively engaged with misinformation and corrective messages based on their prior attitudes. Individuals with more negative prior attitudes toward GM foods were more likely to share, click ‘likes,’ add a positive comment, and were less likely to add a negative comment to the misinformation message that doubts GM food safety. Conversely, individuals with more positive prior attitudes toward GM foods were more likely to share, click ‘likes,’ and were less likely to add a negative comment to the corrective message that supports GM food safety. Individuals were more likely to endorse a corrective message when it was attributed to an expert (vs. social peer) source. However, social media endorsements had no significant impact on individuals’ social media engagement with the corrective message.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. In total, this study collected 330 samples, including one control group that does not receive corrective messages and four treatment groups that receive one of the four corrective messages. In this study, the major purpose is to examine how participants share misinformation and corrective messages. Therefore, I only examined the data from treatment groups (i.e., 264).

2. The high social endorsement cue was represented by a cue of 510 shares, 51 comments, and 1.3K likes. The low social endorsement cue was represented by a cue of 0 shares, 3 comments, and 3 likes.