Keywords

Conspiracy theories, correction methods, COVID-19, audience, China-United States relation, media influence

Abstract

Among the burgeoning discussions on the argumentative styles of conspiracy theories and the related cognitive processes of their audiences, research thus far is limited in regard to developing methods and strategies that could effectively debunk conspiracy theories and reduce the harmful influences of conspiracist media exposure. The present study critically evaluates the effectiveness of five approaches to reducing conspiratorial belief, through experiments (N=607) conducted on Amazon Mechanical Turk. Our results demonstrate that the content-based methods of counter conspiracy theory can partly mitigate conspiratorial belief. Specifically, the science- and fact-focused corrections were able to effectively mitigate conspiracy beliefs, whereas media literacy and inoculation strategies did not produce significant change. More crucially, our findings illustrate that both audience-focused methods, which involve decoding the myth of conspiracy theory and re-imagining intergroup relationships, were effective in reducing the cognitive acceptance of conspiracy theory. Building on these insights, this study contributes to a systematic examination of different epistemic means to influence (or not) conspiracy beliefs -an urgent task in the face of the infodemic threat apparent both during and after the COVID-19 pandemic.

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Technical information

Received: 16-02-2021

Revised: 19-03-2021

Accepted: 27-04-2021

OnlineFirst: 15-06-2021

Publication date: 01-10-2021

Article revision time: 31 days | Average time revision issue 69: 30 days

Article acceptance time: 69 days | Average time of acceptance issue 69: 68 days

Preprint editing time: 181 days | Average editing time preprint issue 69: 180 days

Article editing time: 226 days | Average editing time issue 69: 225 days

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Guan, T., Liu, T., & Yuan, R. (2021). Facing disinformation: Five methods to counter conspiracy theories amid the Covid-19 pandemic. [Combatiendo la desinformación: Cinco métodos para contrarrestar las teorías de conspiración en la pandemia de Covid-19]. Comunicar, 69, 71-83. https://doi.org/10.3916/C69-2021-06

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