Tully, M., Bode, L., & Vraga, E. K. (2020). Mobilizing Users: Does Exposure to Misinformation and Its Correction Affect Users’ Responses to a Health Misinformation Post?. Social Media+ Society, 6(4), 2056305120978377. https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2056305120978377

University of Michigan - Ann Arbor

Researchers studied how readers respond to misinformation and correction for tweets about unpasteurized milk through open-ended responses, content analysis, and varying correction tones. They found that participants were generally not replying to tweets containing misinformation, but after seeing correction made to these misinformative tweets, they were more likely to respond and offer accurate information as well.

Mobilizing Users: Does Exposure to Misinformation and Its Correction Affect Users’ Responses to a Health Misinformation Post?

- Recruited 610 participants from Amazon’s Mechanical Turk in September 2018
- Participants randomly assigned to one of ten experiments, but only four are analyzed and discussed in this paper (ignored the pure control condition and 5 conditions that used two tweets)
- Participants were shown 6 tweets from a simulated feed (5 neutral and 1 manipulated) and required to spend at least 15 seconds on each
- After reading through the tweets, participants answered questions about their general opinion about the tweet and their likelihood to reply and what they would share if they did  
- The manipulation post was the third one shown and it was a meme that said pasteurization kills nutrients in raw milk 

Mobilizing Users: Does Exposure to Misinformation and Its Correction Affect Users’ Responses to a Health Misinformation Post? Experimental Design

- RQ 1: Will exposure to corrections affect (a) self-reported likelihood of replying to the misinformation and (b) likelihood of offering an open-ended reply?
- RQ 2: Will the tone of correction (neutral, affirmative, uncivil) affect (a) self-reported likelihood of replying to the misinformation and (b) likelihood of offering an open-ended reply?
- RQ 3: Will the tone of corrections affect likelihood of replying (a) in opposition to raw milk (b) in support of correction regarding raw milk nutrition, and (c) in support of added information about raw milk safety?
- Hypothesis 1: Exposure to corrections will boost the likelihood of replying (a) in opposition to raw milk, (b) in support of correction regarding raw milk nutrition, and (c) in support of added information about raw milk safety compared to no correction.
- Hypothesis 2: Exposure to the uncivil corrections will lead to a higher percentage of uncivil replies than exposure to (a) no correction and (b) either neutral or affirmative corrections.

Mobilizing Users: Does Exposure to Misinformation and Its Correction Affect Users’ Responses to a Health Misinformation Post? Research Questions and Hypotheses

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