TRUSTED SOURCES AS MYTHBUSTERS: EVALUATING CLIMATE MYTH DEBUNKING ON SOCIAL MEDIA BY TRUSTED CLIMATE INFORMATION SOURCES

Previous research has shown that climate scientists, broadcast meteorologists, and primary care providers are trusted sources for climate information. The present study investigates whether these trusted sources can serve as “mythbusters”—professionals who can debunk misinformation as part of their climate change communication efforts—while also investigating the roles of source trust and alignment of a debunking topic with the source’s specific field of expertise. In a survey-based experiment (n = 900; 49.7% female, 48.75 male; 76.1% White/Caucasian, 12.8% Black/African American, 6.2% Asian/Pacific Islander, 3.6% Hispanic/Latino, median age 46 years), participants were randomly shown one of ten possible mock Facebook posts in a 3 sources (broadcast meteorologist, climate scientist, doctor) x 3 myths (cold weather stops with climate change, there is no consensus on the cause of climate change, climate change is good for human health) design, plus a control condition. Three hypotheses were investigated – H1: seeing a relevant debunking post will increase agreement with the target fact of the debunking, H2: higher trust in the source of the post will result in increased agreement with the target fact, and H3: A three-way interaction will exist such that when the myth being debunked is aligned with the specific expertise of the source, the impact of source trust will increase. Results show that, overall, the myth debunkings were ineffective, i.e., there were no significant differences in agreement with debunking target facts between any of the treatment conditions and the control condition; thus H1 was not supported. However, participants source trust increased belief in the target fact for the consensus and health message conditions, partially supporting H2 and indicating that source trust does play some kind of role in debunking effectiveness. Finally, H3 was not supported as no three-way interactions between source, myth, and source trust were significant. The lack of support for H1 is interesting, considering that many previous studies have shown debunking via social media to be effective. This null finding may be due to over-representation of Democrats in the sample, as well as a potential mediating role played by political party identification resulting in increased tendency of participants to think politically about climate change when their party affiliation is made salient. Results of this study indicate that further research is needed to explore the effect of source expertise and debunking topic alignment on debunking effectiveness. Despite the lack of support for H1, previous research and the partial support present for H2 indicate that trusted sources should continue climate myth debunking work.

Author

• Orr, Margaret

• Climate change
• Inoculation Theory
• Misinformation

Identifier

hdl:1920/14323

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:MARS:1920/14323