Political misinformation is harder to correct than health misinformation – especially among the educated.
New research indicates that corrections have a moderate influence on belief in misinformation.
“As communication scholars, correction of misinformation offers an extremely challenging context to examine the limits of media effects and persuasion.
For their study, the researchers conducted a meta-analysis of 65 previous studies on correcting misinformation about science, health, politics, marketing, and crime.
However, misinformation about politics was harder to correct than misinformation about health, particularly among participants who were well-educated political partisans.
“Thus, it seems that the study offers enough ammunition both for the optimistic and the pessimistic points of view on correction of misinformation.”.
The study, “How to unring the bell: A meta-analytic approach to correction of misinformation“, was authored by Nathan Walter and Sheila T. Murphy. »