Science audiences, misinformation, and fake news

Who spread COVID-19 (mis)information online? Differential informedness, psychological mechanisms, and intervention strategies

Based on a regional survey conducted in five cities of China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Chengdu, and Wuhan) in January 2020 and a national survey experiment conducted in 31 provinces of China in December 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, we investigated the intentions for the misinformed, uninformed, and informed individuals to spread COVID-19 related (mis)information online and the psychological factors affecting their distinct sharing behaviors. We found that (1) both misinformed and uninformed individuals were more likely to spread misinformation and less likely to share fact as compared with the informed ones; (2) the reasons for the misinformed individuals to spread misinformation resembled those for the informed ones to share truth, but the uninformed ones shared misinformation based on different motivations; and (3) information that arouses positive emotions were more likely to go viral than that arouses negative feelings in the context of COVID-19, regardless of facticity. The implications of these findings were discussed in terms of how people react to misinformation when coping with risk, and intervention strategies were proposed to combat COVID-19 or other types of misinformation in risk scenarios.

Social media may hinder learning about science; social media's role in learning about COVID-19

Despite widespread concerns that misinformation is rampant on social media, little systematic and empirical research has been conducted on whether and how news consumption via social media affects people's accurate knowledge about COVID-19. Against this background, this study examines the causal effects of social media use on COVID-19 knowledge (i.e., both in the form of factual knowledge and misinformation detection) as well as the underlying mechanisms through which such effects occur. Based on original panel survey data across six weeks (W1 N = 1,363, W2 N = 752) in the U.S., we found that consuming news from social media fostered the perception that one need not actively seek news anymore because it would reach them anyway through their social connections (i.e., "news-finds-me" perception). This, in turn, can make one both uninformed and misinformed about COVID-19 issues. Furthermore, this mediated relationship is stronger among those who experience higher levels of information overload while on social media.

Learning about informal fallacies and the detection of fake news: An experimental intervention

The philosophical concept of informal fallacies-arguments that fail to provide sufficient support for a claim-is introduced and connected to the topic of fake news detection. We assumed that the ability to identify informal fallacies can be trained and that this ability enables individuals to better distinguish between fake news and real news. We tested these assumptions in a two-group between-participants experiment (N = 116). The two groups participated in a 30-minute-long text-based learning intervention: either about informal fallacies or about fake news. Learning about informal fallacies enhanced participants' ability to identify fallacious arguments one week later. Furthermore, the ability to identify fallacious arguments was associated with a better discernment between real news and fake news. Participants in the informal fallacy intervention group and the fake news intervention group performed equally well on the news discernment task. The contribution of (identifying) informal fallacies for research and practice is discussed.

What College Biology Students Know about How Vaccines Work

Vaccines are an important and societally relevant biology topic, but it is unclear how much college biology students know about how vaccines work and what inaccurate ideas they have about that process. Therefore, we asked more than 600 college students taking biology courses at various levels to explain, "How does a vaccine work?" in a free-response format. Based on authoritative sources and responses from immunology and other biology faculty, we created a rubric to gauge the basic knowledge and accuracy present in student responses. Basic knowledge was defined as knowing that vaccines mimic the pathogen, elicit an active immune response, and provide protection against future infection. Accuracy was defined as the absence of scientifically inaccurate ideas. We found that advanced biology majors score significantly higher in basic knowledge and accuracy when compared with all other student groups, but there were no differences between entering biology majors, pre-health majors, and non-pre-health majors. We also uncovered a variety of inaccurate ideas, with the most common being that vaccines contain the original, unmodified pathogen. These results provide a new way to gauge college student understanding of how a vaccine works and enrich our understanding of what college students know about this process.

How Academic Medicine Can Amplify Truth Amid the Noise of Misinformation, Inaccuracies, and Lies

Inaccurate statements and lies from public figures and political and government leaders have the power to exacerbate dangerous upheavals in our political, health care, and social environments. The widespread misinformation, inaccuracies, and lies about the COVID-19 pandemic (about the origin of the virus, the severity of illness, vaccination, and "cures," to name a few) illustrate the potentially disastrous consequences of false information. Academic medicine must recognize the dangers of such lies and inaccuracies, particularly those related to health, and must understand their sources in traditional and social media and how and why many in the public accept them. Academic health professionals have a unique responsibility to promote and defend the truth in medicine and science, help the public to understand the sources of inaccurate scientific information, and find ways to debunk falsehoods spread by politicians and media outlets. Inaccurate information and lies have threatened the health of the population, the function of health systems, and the training of the future health workforce. They must be combatted by truth telling through scholarly work, clinical activities, and educating health professions trainees at all levels. Academic medicine's institutions should also consider joining the communities they serve and their medical specialty organizations to engage in political advocacy whenever possible. Health professions journals have an important role in highlighting and clarifying important topics and sustaining conversations on them within the academic medicine community. Across all its missions and activities, academic medicine must do its best to combat today's poisonous misinformation, inaccuracies, and lies, and to enter the larger social and political struggles that will determine the health of society and the future.

Beliefs about the nature of knowledge shape responses to the pandemic: Epistemic beliefs, the Dark Factor of Personality, and COVID-19-related conspiracy ideation and behavior

OBJECTIVE

Global challenges such as climate change or the COVID-19 pandemic have drawn public attention to conspiracy theories and citizens' non-compliance to science-based behavioral guidelines. We focus on individuals' worldviews about how one can and should construct reality (epistemic beliefs) to explain the endorsement of conspiracy theories and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and propose the Dark Factor of Personality (D) as an antecedent of post-truth epistemic beliefs.

METHOD AND RESULTS

This model is tested in four pre-registered studies. In Study 1 (N = 321), we found first evidence for a positive association between D and post-truth epistemic beliefs (Faith in Intuition for Facts, Need for Evidence, Truth is Political). In Study 2 (N = 453), we tested the model proper by further showing that post-truth epistemic beliefs predict the endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracies and disregarding COVID-19 behavioral guidelines. Study 3 (N = 923) largely replicated these results at a later stage of the pandemic. Finally, in Study 4 (N = 513), we replicated the results in a German sample, corroborating their cross-cultural validity. Interactions with political orientation were observed.

CONCLUSION

Our research highlights that epistemic beliefs need to be taken into account when addressing major challenges to humankind.

[Conspiracy as a surrogate for religion? Religiosity, spirituality, and affinity towards conspiracy myths in times of crisis]

In times of crisis, alternative interpretations of the world that challenge the public sphere gain impact. During the COVID-19 pandemic, such narratives spread in the form of conspiracy myths. They give explanations for complex questions by assuming that social events are planned and controlled by secret elites. Moreover, they are often based on pseudo-transcendental explanations that defy scrutiny but fill fateful events with meaning. In this context, the question arises whether conspiracy myths contain religious or spiritual elements. In this study, we use a representative population survey conducted in April 2022 in German- and French-speaking Switzerland (n = 1221) to examine the relationship between spirituality, religiosity, and affinity toward conspiracy myths. The results show that emotional concern during the COVID-19 pandemic is an important predictor related to conspiracy affinity. The more negative the emotional concern, the higher the affinity towards conspiracy myths. Conversely, positive emotions during the pandemic negatively affect conspiracy affinity. While religious affiliations and religiosity hardly influence conspiracy affinity, spirituality turns out to be the most important predictor in our study. We conclude that in secularized societies spirituality without involvement in traditional religious communities can result in an increased openness to conspiracy myths as a surrogate for religion.

Vaccine-hesitant individuals accumulate additional COVID-19 risk due to divergent perception and behaviors related to SARS-CoV-2 testing: a population-based, cross-sectional study

Purpose

To investigate the perception of SARS-CoV-2 detection methods, information sources, and opinions on appropriate behavior after receiving negative or positive test results.

Methods

In a questionnaire-based, cross-sectional study conducted between September 1 and November 17, 2021, epidemiological, behavioral, and COVID-19-related data were acquired from the public in Munich, Germany.

Results

Most of the 1388 participants obtained information from online media (82.8%) as well as state and federal authorities (80.3%). 93.4% believed in the accuracy of SARS-CoV-2 PCR testing and 41.2% in the accuracy of rapid antigen tests (RATs). However, RATs were preferred for testing (59.1%) over PCR (51.1%). 24.0% of all individuals were willing to ignore hygiene measures and 76.9% were less afraid of SARS-CoV-2 transmission after receiving a negative PCR test (5.9% and 48.8% in case of a negative RAT). 28.8% reported not to self-isolate after receiving a positive RAT. Multivariate analyses revealed that non-vaccinated individuals relied less on information from governmental authorities (p = 0.0004) and more on social media (p = 0.0216), disbelieved in the accuracy of the PCR test (p ≤ 0.0001) while displaying strong preference towards using RATs (p ≤ 0.0001), were more willing to abandon pandemic-related hygiene measures (p ≤ 0.0001), less afraid of transmitting SARS-CoV-2 after a negative RAT (p ≤ 0.0001), and less likely to isolate after a positive RAT (p ≤ 0.0001).

Conclusion

Insights into preferred information sources as well as perception, preferences, and behavior related to SARS-CoV-2 testing and hygiene measures are key to refining public health information and surveillance campaigns. Non-vaccinated individuals’ divergent believes and behaviors possibly increase their COVID-19 risk.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s15010-022-01947-z .

U.S. Political Partisanship and COVID-19: Risk Information Seeking and Prevention Behaviors

The global pandemic caused by SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) poses serious health risks to humans; yet, despite recommendations by governments and health organizations, a significant number of Americans are not engaging in preventive behaviors. To understand and explain this phenomenon, we seek guidance from a theoretical model that merges the risk information seeking and processing model and the theory of planned behavior. Furthermore, given the politicized nature of the pandemic in the U.S., we pose different information seeking patterns according to media partisanship, asserting that partisanship is likely to affect cognitive structures regarding COVID-19 decision making. Our results suggest two distinct routes for information seeking to decision-making. Conservative media use is directly associated with preventive behavior avoidance, while liberal media use is indirectly associated with preventive behavior engagement. This work contributes to our collective understanding of what drives preventive behaviors in the context of health risk, particularly in the case of a highly politicized national health crisis with global implications.

Fake news, real risks: How online discussion and sources of fact-check influence public risk perceptions toward nuclear energy

This study seeks to understand how online discussion, fact-checking, and sources of fact-checks will influence individuals' risk perceptions toward nuclear energy when they are exposed to fake news. Using a 2 × 3 experimental design, 320 participants were randomly assigned to one of the six experimental conditions. Results showed an interaction effect between online discussion and exposure to fact-checking, in which online discussion lowered individuals' risk perception toward nuclear energy when a fact-check was unavailable. Of those who participated in the online discussion, those who viewed a fact-check posted by traditional media have higher risk perception as compared to those who viewed a fact-check posted by a fact-check organization. Our findings indicate that different fact-checking sources can have differential effects on public risk perceptions, depending on whether online discussion is involved. To curb the spread of fake news, different fact-checking strategies will need to be deployed depending on the situation.

Effects of health misinformation on misbeliefs: understanding the moderating roles of different types of knowledge

Purpose

Health misinformation poses severe risks to people’s health decisions and outcomes. A great deal of research in this area has focused on debunking misinformation and found limited effects of correctives after misinformation exposure. The research on prebunking strategies has been inadequate. Most has focused on forewarning and enhancing literacy skills and knowledge to recognize misinformation. Part of the reason for the inadequacy could be due to the challenges in conceptualizing and measuring knowledge. This study intends to fill this gap and examines various types of knowledge, including subjective knowledge, cancer literacy, persuasion knowledge and media literacy. This study aims to understand how knowledge may moderate the effect of misinformation exposure on misbeliefs.

Design/methodology/approach

An online experiment with a basic experimental design (misinformation exposure: health misinformation vs factual health message) was conducted. The authors measured and tested the moderating role of different types of knowledge (subjective knowledge, cancer literacy, persuasion knowledge and media literacy) separately to improve the understanding of their role in combatting online health misinformation.

Findings

This study found that a higher level of cancer literacy and persuasion knowledge helped people identify misinformation and prevented them from being persuaded by it. A higher level of subjective knowledge, however, reduced the recognition of misinformation, thereby increasing the likelihood of being persuaded by it. Media literacy did not moderate the mediation path.

Originality/value

This study differentiates the role different types of knowledge may have played in moderating the influence of health misinformation. It contributes to a strategic development of interventions that better prepare people against the influence of health misinformation.

Role of fake news and misinformation in supply chain disruption: impact of technology competency as moderator

Studies show that COVID-19 has increased the effects of misinformation and fake news that proliferated during the continued crisis and related turbulent environment. Fake news and misinformation can come from various sources such as social media, print media, as well as from electronic media such as instant messaging services and other apps. There is a growing interest among researchers and practitioners on how fake news and misinformation impacts on supply chain disruption. But the limited research in this area leaves a gap. With this background, the purpose of this study is to determine the role of fake news and misinformation in supply chain disruption and the consequences to a firm's operational performance. This study also investigates the moderating role of technology competency in supply chain disruption and operational performance of the firm. With the help of theories and literature, a theoretical model has been developed. Later, the conceptual model has been validated using partial least squares structural equation modeling. The study finds that there is a significant impact of misinformation and fake news on supply chain disruption, which in turn negatively impacts firms' operational performance. The study also highlights that firms' technology competency can improve the supply chain situation that has been disrupted by misinformation and fake news.

Motivation to participate in secondary science communication

The rise of social media provides convenient mechanisms for audiences to participate in secondary science communication (SSC). The present study employs the theory of consumption values and theory of planned behavior to predict audiences' SSC intentions. The results indicate that emotional value, social value, altruistic value, attitude, internal perceived behavioral control and subjective norm are significant predictors of audiences' intentions to share or to repost science content on their social media. These results suggest that the theory of consumption values, together with the theory of planned behavior, is a useful framework for understanding SSC behaviors.

Measles, Media and Memory: Journalism's Role in Framing Collective Memory of Disease

Language used to describe measles in the press has altered significantly over the last sixty years, a shift that reflects changing perceptions of the disease within the medical community as well as broader changes in public health discourse. California, one of the most populous U.S. states and seat of the 2015 measles outbreak originating at Disneyland, presents an opportunity for observing these changes. This article offers a longitudinal case study of five decades of measles news coverage by the Los Angeles Times and the San Francisco Chronicle, which represented two of the largest news markets in California when the measles vaccine was released, in 1963, and during the 2015 outbreak. Measles reporting during this period displays patterns pointing to an active role for journalists in shaping public understanding of health and medical matters, especially as they recede from public memory, through the employment of available and circulating political and cultural frames. Moreover, journalistic frames in this period of reporting incorporated presentist descriptions of the disease, which imposed present values on the medical past, and which were constructed of decontextualized historical references that supported prevailing contemporary notions of the disease. Framing and the tendency toward presentism, in the context of shifting public health discourse, had the effect of communicating an increasingly severe sounding disease over time, and of shifting blame for that disease's spread from nature to government to individuals. Journalistic framing and causal stories have much power to shape public understanding of medical matters as they recede from public memory.

Coevolving spreading dynamics of negative information and epidemic on multiplex networks

The widespread dissemination of negative information on vaccine may arise people's concern on the safety of vaccine and increase their hesitancy in vaccination, which can seriously impede the progress of epidemic control. Existing works on information-epidemic coupled dynamics focus on the suppression effects of information on epidemic. Here we propose a negative information and epidemic coupled propagation model on two-layer multiplex networks to study the effects of negative information of vaccination on epidemic spreading, where the negative information propagates on the virtual communication layer and the disease spreads on the physical contact layer. In our model, an individual getting an adverse event after vaccination will spread negative information and an individual affected by the negative information will reduce his/her willingness to get vaccinated and spread the negative information. By using the microscopic Markov chain method, we analytically predict the epidemic threshold and final infection density, which agree well with simulation results. We find that the spread of negative information leads to a lower epidemic outbreak threshold and a higher final infection density. However, the individuals' vaccination activities, but not the negative information spreading, has a leading impact on epidemic spreading. Only when the individuals obviously reduce their vaccination willingness due to negative information, the negative information can impact the epidemic spreading significantly.

Emotion, analytic thinking and susceptibility to misinformation during the COVID-19 outbreak

Misinformation has become prevalent since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand why people believe and share misinformation, we conducted a nationwide survey during the COVID-19 outbreak in China. We found the indirect effects of COVID-19 risk on people's information accuracy judgment and associated information sharing intention through people's emotional states. People faced with a higher level of COVID-19 risk (measured by a 7-day moving average of daily new deaths or new cases) experienced weaker positive and stronger negative emotions, and heightened emotionality (both the positive and negative emotions) was associated with increased belief in and greater likelihood to share the COVID-19 information regardless of veracity. We also found that only the negative emotion mediated the relation between the COVID-19 risk and the truth discernment regarding accuracy judgment. However, the mediating effect of negative emotion disappeared among people with high analytic thinking ability. These findings suggest that the analytic thinking ability could moderate the destructive relationship between negative emotion and accuracy discernment. Based on a large sample, our findings provide actionable insights for the policymakers to respond to the spread of misinformation appropriately and promptly during the pandemic.

Why are people antiscience, and what can we do about it?

From vaccination refusal to climate change denial, antiscience views are threatening humanity. When different individuals are provided with the same piece of scientific evidence, why do some accept whereas others dismiss it? Building on various emerging data and models that have explored the psychology of being antiscience, we specify four core bases of key principles driving antiscience attitudes. These principles are grounded in decades of research on attitudes, persuasion, social influence, social identity, and information processing. They apply across diverse domains of antiscience phenomena. Specifically, antiscience attitudes are more likely to emerge when a scientific message comes from sources perceived as lacking credibility; when the recipients embrace the social membership or identity of groups with antiscience attitudes; when the scientific message itself contradicts what recipients consider true, favorable, valuable, or moral; or when there is a mismatch between the delivery of the scientific message and the epistemic style of the recipient. Politics triggers or amplifies many principles across all four bases, making it a particularly potent force in antiscience attitudes. Guided by the key principles, we describe evidence-based counteractive strategies for increasing public acceptance of science.

'Communication, that is the key': a qualitative investigation of how essential workers with COVID-19 responded to public health information

OBJECTIVES

To understand how essential workers with confirmed infections responded to information on COVID-19.

DESIGN

Qualitative analysis of semistructured interviews conducted in collaboration with the national contact tracing management programme in Ireland.

SETTING

Semistructured interviews conducted via telephone and Zoom Meetings.

PARTICIPANTS

18 people in Ireland with laboratory confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections using real-time PCR testing of oropharyngeal and nasopharyngeal swabs. All individuals were identified as part of workplace outbreaks defined as ≥2 individuals with epidemiologically linked infections.

RESULTS

A total of four high-order themes were identified: (1) accessing essential information early, (2) responses to emerging 'infodemic', (3) barriers to ongoing engagement and (4) communication strategies. Thirteen lower order or subthemes were identified and agreed on by the researchers.

CONCLUSIONS

Our findings provide insights into how people infected with COVID-19 sought and processed related health information throughout the pandemic. We describe strategies used to navigate excessive and incomplete information and how perceptions of information providers evolve overtime. These results can inform future communication strategies on COVID-19.

Dynamics of cross-platform attention to retracted papers

Scientific retraction has been on the rise recently. Retracted papers are frequently discussed online, enabling the broad dissemination of potentially flawed findings. Our analysis spans a nearly 10-y period and reveals that most papers exhaust their attention by the time they get retracted, meaning that retractions cannot curb the online spread of problematic papers. This is striking as we also find that retracted papers are pervasive across mediums, receiving more attention after publication than nonretracted papers even on curated platforms, such as news outlets and knowledge repositories. Interestingly, discussions on social media express more criticism toward subsequently retracted results and may thus contain early signals related to unreliable work.

Retracted papers often circulate widely on social media, digital news, and other websites before their official retraction. The spread of potentially inaccurate or misleading results from retracted papers can harm the scientific community and the public. Here, we quantify the amount and type of attention 3,851 retracted papers received over time in different online platforms. Comparing with a set of nonretracted control papers from the same journals with similar publication year, number of coauthors, and author impact, we show that retracted papers receive more attention after publication not only on social media but also, on heavily curated platforms, such as news outlets and knowledge repositories, amplifying the negative impact on the public. At the same time, we find that posts on Twitter tend to express more criticism about retracted than about control papers, suggesting that criticism-expressing tweets could contain factual information about problematic papers. Most importantly, around the time they are retracted, papers generate discussions that are primarily about the retraction incident rather than about research findings, showing that by this point, papers have exhausted attention to their results and highlighting the limited effect of retractions. Our findings reveal the extent to which retracted papers are discussed on different online platforms and identify at scale audience criticism toward them. In this context, we show that retraction is not an effective tool to reduce online attention to problematic papers.

Combating Misinformation by Sharing the Truth: a Study on the Spread of Fact-Checks on Social Media

Misinformation on social media has become a horrendous problem in our society. Fact-checks on information often fall behind the diffusion of misinformation, which can lead to negative impacts on society. This research studies how different factors may affect the spread of fact-checks over the internet. We collected a dataset of fact-checks in a six-month period and analyzed how they spread on Twitter. The spread of fact-checks is measured by the total retweet count. The factors/variables include the truthfulness rating, topic of information, source credibility, etc. The research identifies truthfulness rating as a significant factor: conclusive fact-checks (either true or false) tend to be shared more than others. In addition, the source credibility, political leaning, and the sharing count also affect the spread of fact-checks. The findings of this research provide practical insights into accelerating the spread of the truth in the battle against misinformation online.

Advancing global chemical education through interactive teaching tools

This perspective highlights our recent efforts to develop interactive resources in chemical education for worldwide usage. First, we highlight online tutorials that connect organic chemistry to medicine and popular culture, along with game-like resources for active learning. Next, we describe efforts to aid students in learning to visualize chemical structures in three dimensions. Finally, we present recent approaches toward engaging children and the general population through organic chemistry coloring and activity books. Collectively, these tools have benefited hundreds of thousands of users worldwide. We hope this perspective promotes a spirit of innovation in chemical education and spurs the development of additional free, interactive, and widely accessible chemical education resources.

Noise, Fake News, and Tenacious Bayesians

A modeling framework, based on the theory of signal processing, for characterizing the dynamics of systems driven by the unraveling of information is outlined, and is applied to describe the process of decision making. The model input of this approach is the specification of the flow of information. This enables the representation of (i) reliable information, (ii) noise, and (iii) disinformation, in a unified framework. Because the approach is designed to characterize the dynamics of the behavior of people, it is possible to quantify the impact of information control, including those resulting from the dissemination of disinformation. It is shown that if a decision maker assigns an exceptionally high weight on one of the alternative realities, then under the Bayesian logic their perception hardly changes in time even if evidences presented indicate that this alternative corresponds to a false reality. Thus, confirmation bias need not be incompatible with Bayesian updating. By observing the role played by noise in other areas of natural sciences, where noise is used to excite the system away from false attractors, a new approach to tackle the dark forces of fake news is proposed.

Understanding the spread of COVID-19 misinformation on social media: The effects of topics and a political leader's nudge

The spread of misinformation on social media has become a major societal issue during recent years. In this work, we used the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic as a case study to systematically investigate factors associated with the spread of multi-topic misinformation related to one event on social media based on the heuristic-systematic model. Among factors related to systematic processing of information, we discovered that the topics of a misinformation story matter, with conspiracy theories being the most likely to be retweeted. As for factors related to heuristic processing of information, such as when citizens look up to their leaders during such a crisis, our results demonstrated that behaviors of a political leader, former US President Donald J. Trump, may have nudged people's sharing of COVID-19 misinformation. Outcomes of this study help social media platform and users better understand and prevent the spread of misinformation on social media.

Exploring Adolescents' Critical Reading of Socioscientific Topics Using Multimodal Texts

This qualitative within-individual case design study involved six adolescents (age 10-14 years) engaging in a think-aloud observational protocol to read two texts on climate change from contrasting viewpoints. The participants completed a prior knowledge assessment and survey of technology used to assess potential mediating factors. Survey and observational data are presented as participant profiles. Results illustrated the effect of participants' background knowledge, emotional elicitation of text features, cognitive dissonance argument analysis due to the contrasting multimodal texts, and impact of visual images on participants' comprehension. Our data analyses revealed that there is an interconnected and nuanced relationship amongst many text and individual factors when adolescents engage in critical reading of SSI multimodal texts. This research provides direction for future science education research that support learners in critical reading of complex socioscientific topics as presented in multimodal texts with adolescent learners.

Supplementary Information

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s10763-022-10280-8.

Quando a Fake News acelera o Antropoceno: O caso da Floresta Amazônica (2018-2021)

Os últimos quatros anos, no Brasil, foram marcados por profundos retrocessos nas políticas ambientais. Um elemento agravante foi a propagação de informações falsas que visava desinformar sobre os impactos diretos da ação humana na natureza. Nesse contexto, o objetivo geral do trabalho consistiu em compreender de que forma as Fake News, ao negarem as interferências humanas no meio ambiente, tem contribuído para o aceleramento desse processo. Para tal, foi utilizado a metodologia de pesquisa documental e bibliográfica, com o uso de análise de conteúdo sobre as narrativas proferidas pelo presidente da república, entre os anos de 2018 e 2021. Os resultados apontaram que as mensagens anticiência e negacionistas do presidente fomentaram a sustentação política para o esvaziamento do monitoramento e fiscalização no contexto ambiental, bem como para os sucessivos aumentos das queimadas e desmatamentos na Floresta Amazônica. Enquanto conclusões, o trabalho coloca para a área a importância de se considerar os impactos das notícias falsas nas tentativas de se reduzir o Antropoceno, ressaltando, contudo, que a sua dinâmica tem se mostrado mais complexa do que a simples ênfase na carência de alfabetização científica e ambiental

Mis-Dis Information in COVID-19 Health Crisis: A Narrative Review

BACKGROUND

In this narrative review, we address the COVID-19 pandemic mis-dis information crisis in which healthcare systems have been pushed to their limits, with collapses occurring worldwide. The context of uncertainty has resulted in skepticism, confusion, and general malaise among the population. Informing the public has been one of the major challenges during this pandemic. Misinformation is defined as false information shared by people who have no intention of misleading others. Disinformation is defined as false information deliberately created and disseminated with malicious intentions.

OBJECTIVE

To reach a consensus and critical review about mis-dis information in COVID-19 crisis.

METHODS

A database search was conducted in PsychINFO, MedLine (Pubmed), Cochrane (Wiley), Embase and CinAhl. Databases used the MeSH-compliant keywords of COVID-19, 2019-nCoV, Coronavirus 2019, SARS-CoV-2, misinformation, disinformation, information, vaccines, vaccination, origin, target, spread, communication.

RESULTS

Both misinformation and disinformation can affect the population's confidence in vaccines (development, safety, and efficacy of vaccines, as well as denial of the severity of SARS-CoV infection). Institutions should take into account that a great part of the success of the intervention to combat a pandemic has a relationship with the power to stop the misinformation and disinformation processes. The response should be well-structured and addressed from different key points: central level and community level, with official and centralized communication channels. The approach should be multifactorial and enhanced by the collaboration of social media companies to stop misleading information, and trustworthy people both working or not working in the health care systems to boost the power of the message.

CONCLUSIONS

The response should be well-structured and addressed from different key points: central level and community level, with official and clearly centralized communication channels. The approach should be multifactorial and enhanced from the collaboration of social media companies to stop misleading information, and trustworthy people both working and not working in the health care systems to boost the power of a message based on scientific evidence.

Critical topics and good practices for trust in science communication before and during the COVID-19 pandemic

For a qualitative analysis of factors affecting trust in science communication (scicomm) we used the Delphi method to reach a pool of experts based in Italy and Belgium (researchers/academics, journalists and scicomm practitioners) before and during the COVID-19 pandemic. The results revealed a ‘strong’ consensus (confirmed before and during the pandemic) about good practices promoting trust in scicomm (mainly based on direct interactions with targeted audiences), and about critical topics where trust plays a key role. Such topics include vaccines and the role of pharmaceutical companies, climate change and environmental issues, medical sciences, communication of health risks and public health issues. According to our results, issues related to health and environment were perceived as critical and controversial subjects for trust in scicomm even before the pandemic. The same pool of experts also expressed very diverse views regarding risks and threats to trust in scicomm, and the social, cultural, political and environmental factors that can increase and promote trust in scientific communication among lay audiences. Such diversity reveals the need for further research to explore differences due to the context, based on the individual views of experts or generated from a conceptualisation of trust in scicomm which may be still fuzzy and unclear.

Thirty years of science-society interfaces: What's next?

Looking back over three decades of work on public understanding (and communication) of science, I revisit four areas in which our field has been unnecessarily stagnant, but that also provide exciting opportunities for our field to meaningfully guide what will be critically important global debates surrounding emerging technologies moving forward: (1) letting go of deficit-type thinking among scholars and practitioners, focused on misinformation or other perceived informational asymmetries; (2) resisting the temptation to try and cure what the scientific community often dismisses as public (opinion) pathologies; (3) using a scientific approach to science communication as the foundation of a changing culture of public-minded science; and (4) acknowledging that solutions to the challenges posed by deeply disruptive applications of technologies like AI will not be solved by ethicists, affected communities, social scientists, STEM scientists, activists, journalists or policy makers alone. Emerging science will force societies to build capacity for communication and decision making across all of these stakeholder groups.

Online Medical Misinformation in Cancer: Distinguishing Fact From Fiction

It is without question that the Internet has democratized access to medical information, with estimates that 70% of the American population use it as a resource, particularly for cancer-related information. Such unfettered access to information has led to an increase in health misinformation. Fortunately, the data indicate that health care professionals remain among the most trusted information resources. Therefore, understanding how the Internet has changed engagement with health information and facilitated the spread of misinformation is an important task and challenge for cancer clinicians. In this review, we perform a meta-synthesis of qualitative data and point toward empirical evidence that characterizes misinformation in medicine, specifically in oncology. We present this as a call to action for all clinicians to become more active in ongoing efforts to combat misinformation in oncology.

African Swine Fever-How to Unravel Fake News in Veterinary Medicine

In recent years, fake scientific news has spread much faster through the Internet and social media within the so-called "infodemic". African Swine Fever (ASF) is a perfect case study to prove how fake news can undermine the public health response, even in the veterinary field. ASF is a highly contagious infective disease affecting exclusively domestic and wild pigs such as wild boars. ASF can cause social damage and economic losses both directly (due to the high mortality rate) and indirectly (due to international sanctions). Although ASF is not a threat to human health, since 2018 newspapers have often reported false or misleading news, ranging from misinterpreted findings/data to fake or alarmistic news. In some cases, fake news was spread, such as the use of snipers at the border of nations to kill wild boars, or those reports concerning possible risks to human health. In order to provide real and fact-based news on epidemics, some organizations have created easy-to-read infographic and iconographic materials, available on their websites, to help the readers identifying the fake news. Indeed, it is crucial that governments and scientific organizations work against fear and anxiety, using simple and clear communication.

What Does the General Public Know (or Not) About Neuroscience? Effects of Age, Region and Profession in Brazil

The field of Neuroscience has experienced a growing interest in recent decades, which has led to an exponential growth in the amount of related information made available online as well as the market for Neuroscience-related courses. While this type of knowledge can be greatly beneficial to people working in science, health and education, it can also benefit individuals in other areas. For example, neuroscience knowledge can help people from all fields better understand and critique information about new discoveries or products, and even make better education- and health-related decisions. Online platforms are fertile ground for the creation and spread of fake information, including misrepresentations of scientific knowledge or new discoveries (e.g., neuromyths). These types of false information, once spread, can be difficult to tear down and may have widespread negative effects. For example, even scientists are less likely to access retractions of peer-reviewed articles than the original discredited articles. In this study we surveyed general knowledge about neuroscience and the brain among volunteers in Brazil, Latin America's largest country. We were interested in evaluating the prevalence of neuromyths in this region, and test whether knowledge/neuromyth endorsement differs by age, region, and/or profession. To that end, we created a 30-item survey that was anonymously answered online by 1128 individuals. While younger people (20-29-year-olds) generally responded more accurately than people 60 and older, people in the North responded significantly worse than those in the South and Southeast. Most interestingly, people in the biological sciences consistently responded best, but people in the health sciences responded no better than people in the exact sciences or humanities. Furthermore, years of schooling did not correlate with performance, suggesting that quantity may surpass quality when it comes to extension or graduate-level course offerings. We discuss how our findings can help guide efforts toward improving access to quality information and training in the region.

Trust, Media Credibility, Social Ties, and the Intention to Share Information Verification in an Age of Fake News

Social media is now the primary form of communication between internet users and has soared in popularity, which has directly impacted the spread of the phenomenon of fake news. Fake news is not only a widespread phenomenon; it is also problematic and dangerous for society. The aim of this study is to understand the phenomenon of fake news better. The study utilised a structural modelling equation in order to identify how Polish society perceives the problem of fake news and assess the extent to which it trusts content that is published on the internet. The key goal was to determine what factors have the most significant influence on the verification of information being viewed on the internet. By deploying the partial least squares method of validation, SmartPLS3 software was used to process the survey results. The strongest positive effect on information verification behaviour was found to be fake news awareness, which was followed by the intention to share information. The research did not consider any clear connections that may exist between the nature of fake news and its recipient; however, much of the fake news that appears on the internet is political in nature. The study can be used by news reporting companies and provides preliminary information for developers responsible for running social media sites as well as users who want to combat and limit the spread of fake news online. This study expands on the available literature related to fake news by identifying the effects on information verification behaviour of fake news awareness and the intention to share data.

The chronic growing pains of communicating science online

Scientists have not yet adapted to new information environments.

Beyond belief: a cross-genre study on perception and validation of health information online

Natural language undergoes significant transformation from the domain of specialized research to general news intended for wider consumption. This transition makes the information vulnerable to misinterpretation, misrepresentation, and incorrect attribution, all of which may be difficult to identify without adequate domain knowledge and may exist even in the presence of explicit citations. Moreover, newswire articles seldom provide a precise correspondence between a specific claim and its origin, making it harder to identify which claims, if any, reflect the original findings. For instance, an article stating "Flagellin shows therapeutic potential with H3N2, known as Aussie Flu." contains two claims ("Flagellin ... H3N2," and "H3N2, known as Aussie Flu") that may be true or false independent of each other, and it is prima facie unclear which claims, if any, are supported by the cited research. We build a dataset of sentences from medical news along with the sources from peer-reviewed medical research journals they cite. We use these data to study what a general reader perceives to be true, and how to verify the scientific source of claims. Unlike existing datasets, this captures the metamorphosis of information across two genres with disparate readership and vastly different vocabularies and presents the first empirical study of health-related fact-checking across them.

The effect of misinformation and inoculation: Replication of an experiment on the effect of false experts in the context of climate change communication

An important communication strategy of climate skeptics is the use of fake experts, who act as spokespersons, although they do not possess any expertise in the field. One promising approach to tackle the effect of misinformation is inoculation. Previous research focuses on the United States, and the comparably low effect sizes of previous research call for further examination and consolidation. This study aims to complement those findings with data for Germany and replicates and extends an experiment by Cook et al. with a 2 × 2 between-subjects design. Our study confirms the importance of pre-existing worldviews for climate-related attitudes. Regarding the effects of misinformation messages and most notably, the effects of inoculation messages we could not replicate the findings of Cook et al.: At least in our setting, the misinformation message and also inoculation preceding misinformation had hardly any effect on the climate-related attitudes under study.

Eine Frage der Erwartungen?

Wissenschaftskommunikation trägt dazu bei, wissenschaftliches Wissen für die breite Öffentlichkeit zugänglich zu machen. Welche Ansprüche das Publikum hierbei an die Vermittlung richtet und inwiefern dies den Vorstellungen der Kommunikator*innen entspricht, wird bislang in Forschung und Praxis wenig berücksichtigt. Eine Auseinandersetzung mit Qualitätsfragen befindet sich in der Wissenschaftskommunikation noch in ihren Anfängen. Vor diesem Hintergrund wird auf der Grundlage des wissenschaftsjournalistischen Qualitätsdiskurses ein Vorschlag für mögliche Qualitätsdimensionen von Wissenschaftskommunikation entwickelt und am Beispiel des etablierten Formats der wissenschaftlichen Expert*innendebatte operationalisiert. Im Rahmen einer Pre-Post-Befragung erhebt die vorliegende Studie, orientiert an den Annahmen der Theorie der subjektiven Qualitätsauswahl von Wolling, Qualitätserwartungen und -bewertungen aus Publikumssicht. Die Perspektive der Formatverantwortlichen und was ihrer Ansicht nach die Qualität von Wissenschaftskommunikation kennzeichnet, wird kontrastierend in leitfadengestützten Expert*inneninterviews thematisiert.

Das Publikum erwartet insbesondere Glaubwürdigkeit, Zugänglichkeit, Unabhängigkeit, Neutralität und Vielfalt von dem Format und den debattierenden Expert*innen. Diese Dimensionen stellen gewissermaßen Grundvoraussetzungen dar, damit Teilnehmende den vermittelten Inhalten vertrauen und sie gegebenenfalls in ihrem Verhalten berücksichtigen können. Obwohl sich das Format in seiner Konzeption am Public Engagement-Paradigma orientiert, ist ihnen eine Einbindung weniger wichtig. Es zeigen sich Inkongruenzen zu dem, worauf die Kommunikator*innen beim Debattenformat Wert legen. Sie erachten im Unterschied zum Publikum eine hohe Themenaktualität und gesellschaftliche Relevanz als zentrale Qualitätsmerkmale. Das Spannungsfeld zwischen einem normativen Anspruch an Wissenschaftskommunikation und dessen Umsetzung in der Praxis spiegelt sich in ihren Aussagen wider.

When does credibility matter? The assessment of information sources in teenagers navigation regimes

The aim of this paper is to investigate when and how Brazilian teenagers assess the credibility of information sources. We analyze data collected through focus groups, guided internet searches, and interviews with sixty-one 14- to 19-year olds from the state of Rio de Janeiro. Participants used different criteria to attribute credibility to information sources, with expertise and reputation being two of the most relevant, placing specialists, teachers, and the mainstream media at the top of their list of credible sources. Interestingly, these sources are not necessarily the ones that are most present in their daily lives, and credibility is only a relevant factor in some circumstances. Based on our results and data from other studies on the topic, we propose three navigation regimes (dilletante, motivated, and constrained) as a framework for analyzing teenagers’ information evaluation behavior, in which the role of sources’ credibility varies considerably. We believe this framework can help in the development of more effective strategies for improving young people’s sourcing skills and media literacy.

Social Psychological Predictors of Belief in Fake News in the Run-Up to the 2019 Hungarian Elections: The Importance of Conspiracy Mentality Supports the Notion of Ideological Symmetry in Fake News Belief

Accessing information online is now easier than ever. However, also false information is circulated in increasing quantities. We sought to identify social psychological factors that could explain why some people are more susceptible to false information. Specifically, we investigated whether psychological predispositions (social dominance orientation, right-wing authoritarianism, system justification beliefs (SJB), openness, need for closure, conspiracy mentality), competencies (scientific and political knowledge, interest in politics) or motivated reasoning based on social identity (political orientation) could help explain who believes fake news. Hungarian participants (N = 295) judged political (anti- and pro-government) and non-political news. The Hungarian context-characterized by low trust in media, populist communication by the government and increasing polarization-should be fertile ground for the proliferation of fake news. The context in making this case particularly interesting is that the major political fault line in Hungary runs between pro- and anti-government supporter groups and not, for instance, between conservative and liberal ideology or partisanship. We found clear support for the motivational reasoning explanation as political orientation consistently predicted belief in both fake and real political news when their contents aligned with one's political identity. The belief in pro-government news was also associated with higher SJB among pro-government supporters. Those interested in politics showed better capacity to distinguish real political news from the fake ones. Most importantly, the only psychological predisposition that consistently explained belief in all types of fake news was a conspiracy mentality. This supports the notion of ideological symmetry in fake news belief-where a conspiracy mentality can be found across the political spectrum, and it can make people susceptible to disinformation regardless of group-memberships and other individual differences.

Risk sharing on Twitter: Social amplification and attenuation of risk in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic

Social media trust and sharing behaviors have considerable implications on how risk is being amplified or attenuated at early stages of pandemic outbreaks and may undermine subsequent risk communication efforts. A survey conducted in February 2020 in the United States examined factors affecting information sharing behaviors and social amplification or attenuation of risk on Twitter among U.S. citizens at the early stage of the COVID-19 outbreak. Building on the social amplification of risk framework (SARF), the study suggests the importance of factors such as online discussion, information seeking behaviors, blame and anger, trust in various types of Twitter accounts and misinformation concerns in influencing the spread of risk information during the incipient stages of a crisis when the publics rely primarily on social media for information. An attenuation of risk was found among the US public, as indicated by the overall low sharing behaviors. Findings also imply that (dis)trust and misinformation concerns on social media sources, and inconsistencies in early risk messaging may have contributed to the attenuation of risk and low risk knowledge among the US publics at the early stage of the outbreak, further problematizing subsequent risk communication efforts.