Why People Who Know Less Think They Know about COVID-19: Evidence from US and Singapore

Abstract

This study explores the effects of traditional media and social media on different types of knowledge about COVID-19. We also explore how surveillance motivation moderates the relationship between media use and different types of knowledge. Based on cross-national data from Singapore and the United States, we find that news seeking via social media is negatively related to factual knowledge and positively related to subjective knowledge and knowledge miscalibration. News seeking via traditional media is not significantly related to factual knowledge. Although the main effects are highly consistent across the two countries, we find some different interaction patterns across these countries.

How Incidental and Intentional News Exposure in Social Media Relate to Political Knowledge and Voting Intentions

“…This allows for a seemingly endless stream of news and, thus, endless possibilities to gain knowledge online. However, current research indicates that social media news use is more closely connected to gains in subjective knowledge than objective knowledge (Lee et al, 2021. While objective knowledge is the amount of information stored in one's memory (Delli Carpini & Keeter, 1996), subjective knowledge is the perception of this very knowledge (Flynn & Goldsmith, 1999).…”

“…Additionally, the mere frequency of social media news use was shown to increase subjective knowledge (e.g. Lee et al, 2021Ran et al, 2016;Schäfer, 2020;Yamamoto et al, 2018;Yamamoto & Yang, 2021). Many people use social media on the go, while also occupied with other tasks such as watching TV.…”

How Motivation to Reduce Uncertainty Predicts COVID-19 Behavioral Responses: Strategic Health Communication Insights for Managing an Ongoing Pandemic

“…However, literature has also documented negative associations between social media use and factual knowledge ( Cacciatore et al, 2018 ). Reliance on certain information from social media does not contribute to adequate factual knowledge and indeed even limits knowledge ( Cacciatore et al, 2018 ; Gerosa et al, 2021 ; S. Lee et al, 2022 ; Schäfer, 2020 ). Ironically, those who are exposed to information on social media are likely to feel knowledgeable about an issue (i.e., perceived or subjective knowledge); indeed, information acquired from social media channels can lead to overconfidence in one’s level of self-knowledge ( S. Lee et al, 2022 ; Schäfer, 2020 ; Yamamoto et al, 2018 ).…”

“…Reliance on certain information from social media does not contribute to adequate factual knowledge and indeed even limits knowledge ( Cacciatore et al, 2018 ; Gerosa et al, 2021 ; S. Lee et al, 2022 ; Schäfer, 2020 ). Ironically, those who are exposed to information on social media are likely to feel knowledgeable about an issue (i.e., perceived or subjective knowledge); indeed, information acquired from social media channels can lead to overconfidence in one’s level of self-knowledge ( S. Lee et al, 2022 ; Schäfer, 2020 ; Yamamoto et al, 2018 ). One possible reason for these findings may be that informational items (e.g., news posts) on social media are presented mainly in the form of previews, headlines, and teasers; subsequently, users do not seek more information due to information overload ( S. Lee et al, 2022 ; Schäfer, 2020 ; Van Erkel & Van Aelst, 2021 ).…”

Metacognitive effects of attitudinal (in)congruence on social media: Relating processing fluency, subjective knowledge, and political participation

“…Corresponding research uses different terminologies to describe this metacognitive construct, including perceived knowledge [32,33], confidence in knowledge [34], political information efficacy [35], and subjective knowledge [8,36,37]. In this paper, we will adopt the term subjective knowledge.…”