The Potential for Narrative Correctives to Combat Misinformation†

Sangalang, Angeline; Ophir, Yotam; Cappella, Joseph N.

doi:10.1093/joc/jqz014

Cited by 73 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 66 publications

(84 reference statements)

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“…Among these is the journalistic practice that reduces abstract topics, such as vaccination refusal or hesitancy, to personal stories. News accounts about a parent who fears or reports a child’s experience with a side effect cannot be simply debunked as inaccurate or treated as misinformation in and of itself [ 5 ]. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control reports that the possible risks of the MMR vaccine include (a) soreness, redness, or rash, (b) fever or swelling of the glands in the cheeks or neck, or (c) in more serious cases, seizures, pneumonia, swelling of brain, and unusual bleeding [ 6 ].…”

Section: The Effects Of Scientific Messages and Narratives About Vaccinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of scientific messages and narratives about vaccination

Kuru

Stecuła

et al. 2021

PLoS ONE

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A fundamental challenge complicates news decisions about covering vaccine side effects: although serious vaccine side effects are rare, less severe ones do occur occasionally. The study was designed to test whether a side effect message could induce vaccine hesitancy and whether that could be countered by pro-vaccine messages about vaccine safety. A large (N = 2,345), nationally representative experiment was conducted by randomly exposing participants to one of six videos about the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine edited from news programs produced during the 2019 measles outbreak in the United States. The design was a 2x3 factorial crossing the presence or absence of a hesitancy-inducing narrative message with a pro-vaccine science-supporting message (i.e., no message, science-supporting expert message, or pro-vaccine narrative message), leading to a total of six conditions. A general linear model was used to assess the effects of these videos on respondents’ (1) vaccine risk perceptions, (2) policy views on vaccination, (3) willingness to encourage others to vaccinate their children, and (4) intention to send a pro-vaccine letter to their state representative. Findings indicated that the science-supporting expert message about vaccine safety led to higher pro-vaccine evaluations relative to other conditions [e.g., b = -0.17, p < .001, a reduction in vaccine risk perceptions of 0.17 as compared to the control]. There was also suggestive evidence that the hesitancy-inducing narrative may limit the effectiveness of a science-supporting expert message, although this finding was not consistent across different outcomes. When shown alone the hesitancy-inducing narrative did not shift views and intentions, but more research is needed to ascertain whether exposure to such messages can undercut the pro-vaccine influence of science-supporting (expert) ones. All in all, however, it is clear that science-supporting messages are effective and therefore worthwhile in combating vaccine misinformation.

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Section: The Effects Of Scientific Messages and Narratives About Vaccinationmentioning

confidence: 99%

The effects of scientific messages and narratives about vaccination

Kuru

Stecuła

et al. 2021

PLoS ONE

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…To the best of our knowledge, only one study has investigated the effectiveness of narrative corrections. Sangalang et al ( 2019 ) explored whether narrative corrections could reduce smokers’ misinformed beliefs about tobacco. Results were inconclusive, as a narrative correction was found to reduce misconceptions in only one of the two experiments reported.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

You don’t have to tell a story! A registered report testing the effectiveness of narrative versus non-narrative misinformation corrections

2020

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Misinformation often has an ongoing effect on people’s memory and inferential reasoning even after clear corrections are provided; this is known as the continued influence effect. In pursuit of more effective corrections, one factor that has not yet been investigated systematically is the narrative versus non-narrative format of the correction. Some scholars have suggested that a narrative format facilitates comprehension and retention of complex information and may serve to overcome resistance to worldview-dissonant corrections. It is, therefore, a possibility that misinformation corrections are more effective if they are presented in a narrative format versus a non-narrative format. The present study tests this possibility. We designed corrections that are either narrative or non-narrative, while minimizing differences in informativeness. We compared narrative and non-narrative corrections in three preregistered experiments (total N = 2279). Experiment 1 targeted misinformation contained in fictional event reports; Experiment 2 used false claims commonly encountered in the real world; Experiment 3 used real-world false claims that are controversial, in order to test the notion that a narrative format may facilitate corrective updating primarily when it serves to reduce resistance to correction. In all experiments, we also manipulated test delay (immediate vs. 2 days), as any potential benefit of the narrative format may only arise in the short term (if the story format aids primarily with initial comprehension and updating of the relevant mental model) or after a delay (if the story format aids primarily with later correction retrieval). In all three experiments, it was found that narrative corrections are no more effective than non-narrative corrections. Therefore, while stories and anecdotes can be powerful, there is no fundamental benefit of using a narrative format when debunking misinformation.

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“…However, these studies looked at very specific types of emotional flow and did not examine the manipulation of flow systematically. At the same time, other studies, including our own set of experiments (Sangalang, Ophir, & Cappella, 2019) failed to provide empirical support for the notion that emotional flow enhances engagement and persuasion. In fact, some studies found short EE stories consisting of only one consistent emotion to be more engaging and persuasive than those consisting of emotional shifts (McAllister, 2020).…”

Section: Why Emotional Shifts Are Expected To Increase Engagement Andmentioning

confidence: 66%