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The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis

While the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is spreading all over the world, misinformation, without prudent journalistic judgments of media content online, has begun circulating rapidly and influencing public opinion on social media. This quantitative study intends to advance the previous misinf...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Luo, Yunjuan, Cheng, Yang
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8196605/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063779
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115505
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author Luo, Yunjuan
Cheng, Yang
author_facet Luo, Yunjuan
Cheng, Yang
author_sort Luo, Yunjuan
collection PubMed
description While the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is spreading all over the world, misinformation, without prudent journalistic judgments of media content online, has begun circulating rapidly and influencing public opinion on social media. This quantitative study intends to advance the previous misinformation research by proposing and examining a theoretical model following an “influence of presumed influence” perspective. Two survey studies were conducted on participants located in the United States (N = 1793) and China (N = 504), respectively, to test the applicability of the influence of presumed influence theory. Results indicated that anger and anxiety significantly predicted perceived influence of misinformation on others; presumed influence on others positively affected public support in corrective and restrictive actions in both U.S. and China. Further, anger toward misinformation led to public willingness to self-correct in the U.S. and China. In contrast, anxiety only took effects in facilitating public support for restrictive actions in the U.S. This study conducted survey research in China and the U.S. to expand the influence of presumed influence (IPI) hypothesis to digital misinformation in both Western and non-Western contexts. This research provides implications for social media companies and policy makers to combat misinformation online.
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spelling pubmed-81966052021-06-13 The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis Luo, Yunjuan Cheng, Yang Int J Environ Res Public Health Article While the coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is spreading all over the world, misinformation, without prudent journalistic judgments of media content online, has begun circulating rapidly and influencing public opinion on social media. This quantitative study intends to advance the previous misinformation research by proposing and examining a theoretical model following an “influence of presumed influence” perspective. Two survey studies were conducted on participants located in the United States (N = 1793) and China (N = 504), respectively, to test the applicability of the influence of presumed influence theory. Results indicated that anger and anxiety significantly predicted perceived influence of misinformation on others; presumed influence on others positively affected public support in corrective and restrictive actions in both U.S. and China. Further, anger toward misinformation led to public willingness to self-correct in the U.S. and China. In contrast, anxiety only took effects in facilitating public support for restrictive actions in the U.S. This study conducted survey research in China and the U.S. to expand the influence of presumed influence (IPI) hypothesis to digital misinformation in both Western and non-Western contexts. This research provides implications for social media companies and policy makers to combat misinformation online. MDPI 2021-05-21 /pmc/articles/PMC8196605/ /pubmed/34063779 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115505 Text en © 2021 by the authors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
spellingShingle Article
Luo, Yunjuan
Cheng, Yang
The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title_full The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title_fullStr The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title_full_unstemmed The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title_short The Presumed Influence of COVID-19 Misinformation on Social Media: Survey Research from Two Countries in the Global Health Crisis
title_sort presumed influence of covid-19 misinformation on social media: survey research from two countries in the global health crisis
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8196605/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34063779
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18115505
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