Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study

The rapid spread of preliminary scientific evidence is raising concerns on its role in producing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated how the communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence affects the spread of its inferred misinformation in a Weibo case s...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Lu, Jiahui, Zhang, Meishan, Zheng, Yan, Li, Qiyu
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: MDPI 2021
Materias:
Article
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831688
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211933
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author Lu, Jiahui
Zhang, Meishan
Zheng, Yan
Li, Qiyu
author_facet Lu, Jiahui
Zhang, Meishan
Zheng, Yan
Li, Qiyu
author_sort Lu, Jiahui
collection PubMed
description The rapid spread of preliminary scientific evidence is raising concerns on its role in producing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated how the communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence affects the spread of its inferred misinformation in a Weibo case study. In total, 3439 Weibo posts and 10,380 reposts regarding the misinformation of pets transmitting COVID-19 were analyzed. The results showed that attitude ambiguity toward the preliminary evidence and the stage when the evidence was first released with uncertainty were associated with higher numbers of likes and retweets of misinformation posts. Our study highlights the internal sources of misinformation and revisits the contextual perspective in misinformation studies.
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spelling pubmed-86201712021-11-27 Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study Lu, Jiahui Zhang, Meishan Zheng, Yan Li, Qiyu Int J Environ Res Public Health Article The rapid spread of preliminary scientific evidence is raising concerns on its role in producing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated how the communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence affects the spread of its inferred misinformation in a Weibo case study. In total, 3439 Weibo posts and 10,380 reposts regarding the misinformation of pets transmitting COVID-19 were analyzed. The results showed that attitude ambiguity toward the preliminary evidence and the stage when the evidence was first released with uncertainty were associated with higher numbers of likes and retweets of misinformation posts. Our study highlights the internal sources of misinformation and revisits the contextual perspective in misinformation studies. MDPI 2021-11-13 /pmc/articles/PMC8620171/ /pubmed/34831688 http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211933 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
Lu, Jiahui
Zhang, Meishan
Zheng, Yan
Li, Qiyu
Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title_full Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title_fullStr Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title_full_unstemmed Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title_short Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study
title_sort communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence and the spread of its inferred misinformation during the covid-19 pandemic—a weibo case study
topic Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8620171/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34831688
http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph182211933
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