“I enjoy thinking critically, and I'm in control”: Examining the influences of media literacy factors on misperceptions amidst the COVID-19 infodemic

Emotion Dysregulation and Conspiracy Beliefs about COVID-19: The Moderating Role of Critical Social Media Use

“…Second, our findings are also consistent with previous studies linking unregulated social media use with endorsement of conspiracy theories and the strength of such beliefs [ 23 , 34 , 35 ]. These data are not surprising given that conspiracy theories, like most misinformation, are consumed and reinforced primarily through the most popular social media platforms.…”

“…Our study extends these results to specific COVID-19 conspiracy beliefs. While previous research has demonstrated the protective role of general media literacy in the development and maintenance of conspiracy theories [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ], our findings represent a new contribution to the literature because here we considered critical media literacy in the specific context of social media.…”

“…A crucial role could be played by media literacy, which is a combination of a person’s knowledge about media, motivations, and needs that arise from consuming new media, and intellectual skills needed to critically analyze and interpret information [ 30 , 31 ]. There is evidence that higher media literacy is associated with lower advocacy of conspiracy theories [ 32 , 33 , 34 , 35 ], but the limited existing data focus on a general definition of media literacy and leave out the issue of media literacy in the specific context of social media networks.…”

Conservative Media Use and COVID-19 Related Behavior: The Moderating Role of Media Literacy Variables

“…Both media literacy for source and for content had a positive association with behaviors meant to mitigate the effects of COVID-19. These findings echo previous work on selfperceived media literacy [64] and related constructs like media locus of control or need for cognition [41] being associated with fewer misperceptions about COVID-19, some of which include beliefs about the efficacy of the kinds of protective health behaviors examined in the present study. The present study also builds upon previous work on media literacy for source/content and its relation to COVID-19 [40], which found conditional effects for media literacy for content on COVID-19 misperceptions, i.e., liberals higher in media literacy for content were more likely to have reduced misperceptions about COVID-19, unlike conservatives who were higher in these same misperceptions regardless of their media literacy for content levels.…”

“…Recent evidence [40] suggests that, while incidental news exposure is associated with COVID-19-related misperceptions, an individual's own confidence in their media literacy skills (i.e., self-perceived media literacy) can mitigate incidental exposure's association with these same misperceptions. Other constructs associated with media literacy, such as need for cognition and one's own perception of control of the information consumed (i.e., media locus of control), have been found to have both direct and indirect associations with decreased misperceptions of COVID-19 [41]. Outside of prior research on media literacy generally, further research on health-specific media literacy skills have revealed that those with higher digital health literacy are more likely to report intention to vaccinate and take the prospect of COVID-19 infection seriously [42].…”