Abstract
Drawing on social identity theory and politeness theory, this study tested the effects of partisan media’s correction of COVID-19 vaccine misinformation on individuals’ message credibility perceptions and news engagement intentions. Based on a between-subjects online experiment in the United States, we found that partisans exposed to ingroup media perceived corrective messages as more credible (marginally) and held higher news engagement intentions than those exposed to outgroup media; nonpartisans rated corrective messages on partisan media as less credible and were less likely to engage than partisans. It also revealed that message credibility mediated the effects of exposure condition on news engagement intentions. Further, the results show that types of risk quantifiers moderated the direct effects of exposure condition on message credibility perceptions and the indirect effects on news engagement intentions via message credibility perceptions. We discuss the findings in light of how news media could combat misinformation in a polarized society.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 2038-2059 |
| Number of pages | 22 |
| Journal | International Journal of Communication |
| Volume | 16 |
| State | Published - 2022 |
| Externally published | Yes |
Bibliographical note
Publisher Copyright:© 2022 (Shuning Lu and Lingzi Zhong). Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at http://ijoc.org.
Keywords
- COVID-19
- message credibility
- misinformation correction
- news engagement
- politeness theory
- social identity theory