A digital media literacy intervention increases discernment between mainstream and false news in the United States and India
dc.contributor.author | Guess, AM | |
dc.contributor.author | Lerner, M | |
dc.contributor.author | Lyons, B | |
dc.contributor.author | Montgomery, JM | |
dc.contributor.author | Nyhan, B | |
dc.contributor.author | Reifler, J | |
dc.contributor.author | Sircar, N | |
dc.date.accessioned | 2020-07-07T14:19:58Z | |
dc.date.issued | 2020-06-22 | |
dc.description.abstract | Widespread belief in misinformation circulating online is a critical challenge for modern societies. While research to date has focused on psychological and political antecedents to this phenomenon, few studies have explored the role of digital media literacy shortfalls. Using data from preregistered survey experiments conducted around recent elections in the United States and India, we assess the effectiveness of an intervention modeled closely on the world's largest media literacy campaign, which provided "tips" on how to spot false news to people in 14 countries. Our results indicate that exposure to this intervention reduced the perceived accuracy of both mainstream and false news headlines, but effects on the latter were significantly larger. As a result, the intervention improved discernment between mainstream and false news headlines among both a nationally representative sample in the United States (by 26.5%) and a highly educated online sample in India (by 17.5%). This increase in discernment remained measurable several weeks later in the United States (but not in India). However, we find no effects among a representative sample of respondents in a largely rural area of northern India, where rates of social media use are far lower. | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | European Union Horizon 2020 | en_GB |
dc.description.sponsorship | Facebook Integrity Foundational Research Awards | en_GB |
dc.identifier.citation | Published online 22 June 2020 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.doi | 10.1073/pnas.1920498117 | |
dc.identifier.grantnumber | 682758 | en_GB |
dc.identifier.uri | http://hdl.handle.net/10871/121819 | |
dc.language.iso | en | en_GB |
dc.publisher | National Academy of Sciences | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/32571950 | en_GB |
dc.relation.url | https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Q5QINN | en_GB |
dc.rights | © 2020 the Author(s). Published by PNAS. This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND). | en_GB |
dc.subject | digital literacy | en_GB |
dc.subject | misinformation | en_GB |
dc.subject | social media | en_GB |
dc.title | A digital media literacy intervention increases discernment between mainstream and false news in the United States and India | en_GB |
dc.type | Article | en_GB |
dc.date.available | 2020-07-07T14:19:58Z | |
exeter.place-of-publication | United States | en_GB |
dc.description | This is the final version. Available on open access from the National Academy of Sciences via the DOI in this record | en_GB |
dc.description | Data deposition: Data files and scripts necessary to replicate the results in this article are available at the Dataverse repository at https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/Q5QINN. The US study preanalysis plan is available at https://osf.io/u3sgc. The India study preanalysis plan is available at https://osf.io/97rnz. | en_GB |
dc.identifier.eissn | 1091-6490 | |
dc.identifier.journal | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | en_GB |
dc.rights.uri | https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ | en_GB |
dcterms.dateAccepted | 2020-04-28 | |
exeter.funder | ::European Commission | en_GB |
rioxxterms.version | VoR | en_GB |
rioxxterms.licenseref.startdate | 2020-06-22 | |
rioxxterms.type | Journal Article/Review | en_GB |
refterms.dateFCD | 2020-07-07T14:16:33Z | |
refterms.versionFCD | VoR | |
refterms.dateFOA | 2020-07-07T14:20:06Z | |
refterms.panel | C | en_GB |
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This open access article is distributed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives License 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND).