The 2019 novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is potentially the most harmful global infectious disease outbreak in more than a century, and is accompanied by severe economic, social, and political disruptions. The rapid progression of the pandemic has been matched with an ?infodemic? of false or misleading online health information about COVID-19 that has been difficult to combat. Although scholars have examined the veracity of online information, susceptibility to false or misleading online information, and its influence on beliefs, there remains a great deal to learn about the infodemic?s downstream consequences. Widely shared falsehoods are likely to affect decision making, attitudes, and behavior, especially over an extended period and outside of the laboratory. This lack of basic knowledge hampers our ability to quantify potential harms of false or misleading online information on public health, and to identify factors and interventions that mitigate its harmful influence. Unprecedented uncertainty, anxiety, and fear about the pandemic, the enormous amount of health information about COVID-19 available online, and a lack of understanding about the long-term impacts of false or misleading information create a pressing need for an examination of how online information influences Americans? risk perceptions and decision making about the pandemic.
The overarching argument is for a reinforcing spiral over time in which exposure to, and endorsement of, false or misleading online health information about COVID-19 amplifies pre-existing cultural divides in COVID-19 risk perceptions, policy preferences, and behaviors. Previous research has examined how cultural worldviews and online information relates to beliefs, emotions, and behaviors in infectious disease outbreaks, but that research has not done so over an extended period, and it has not focused on the role of false or misleading health information. This project closes this scientific gap by integrating psychological and communication theories of risk, belief change, and decision making to measure the influence of false or misleading online health information exposure on risk perceptions and behavior over a time period. The research involves an innovative integration of social engagement data (e.g., likes, shares on social media), content analysis, survey research, online experiments, and web-tracking data collected over a 7 month study period.
In the COVID-19 context, this project presents a rare and important opportunity to assess the impacts of online information about an evolving health crisis as it unfolds, rather than retrospectively, while generating new scientific insights about processes by which false or misleading online information can harm individuals and society. Furthermore, the COVID-19 pandemic may last for some time, and future novel virus outbreaks are likely. As a result, the problem of false or misleading online health information and its impact on public health drives the need for more effective evidence-based mitigation practices by industry, government, and community actors. This project generates essential guidance, offering best practices for effective risk communication, strengthening resistance to false and misleading online information, and reducing cultural divides that hamper decision making in the context of risk. The project also produces a rich set of data that is publicly available, and results are shared through peer-reviewed journal articles detailing major findings and implications for risk communication practice. Coordinated by the Center for Communication and Public Policy at Northwestern University, the insights and results generated by this project are disseminated to the public through media interviews, university publicity, essays on media platforms such as The Conversation and the Washington Post, white papers, and community talks.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
