Assessing the relative merits of news literacy and corrections in responding to misinformation on Twitter

In this holistic study we study the combined impact of two strategies to battle misinformation– Observational Correction, a reactive approach to specific pieces of misinformation and New Literacy messages, a proactive approach to promote the recognition of misinformation. While we also consider their effects separately, our main focus is to study their intersection across a wide range of possible outcomes: such as how credible people perceive the information to be? Do they reduce misperceptions? And do people feel more confident in their ability to be able to detect misinformation [Self perceived news literacy (SPNL)] and what do they think about the importance of news literacy in a democratic society [Value for news literacy (VNL)]. Contrary to what we thought, exposure to misinformation does not necessarily generate more misperceptions. However, consistent with past research, correction continues to be a promising approach as it reduces misperceptions and the perception of credibility. Interestingly, we found that news literacy efforts did not have a significant effect in reducing either, in fact it also reduced people’s confidence (SPNL)  and faith in news literacy (VNL). When taken together, the tweets were less seen credible regardless of whether it was actual misinformation or not but there were negative effects on SPNL and VPN. This suggests that even an effective strategy like observational correction cannot inhibit the negative effects– creating the risk of news avoidance altogether. Alternatively, we found that NL messages were effective in reducing misperceptions and credibility among those who were able to recall it– hence maybe the answer lies in making an NL message more memorable or they may be more suitable to a longer campaign where these messages are repeatedly sent out.