(PDF) Negativity and Misinformation (Political Communication, forthcoming) PDF | There are large and growing bodies of research highlighting inaccuracies in news coverage. In this paper, we suggest that negativity biases in... | Find, read and cite all the research you need ...

A new 20-year analysis of news coverage reveals a clear link between negativity and misinformation. As the authors conclude: "as the negativity bias increases, accuracy decreases."
www.researchgate.net/publication/... #MisinfoResearch

The Power of Technical Language: Does Jargon Use Influence the Credibility of Misinformation? Across two studies, we examined the impact of different levels of jargon on the perceived credibility of texts containing reliable or unreliable information. Study 1 found that higher levels of jargo...

A new study finds that jargon makes false information seem more credible. It boosts perceived expertise, especially among people with higher conspiracy mentality, even though it simultaneously reduces readability.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#MisinfoResearch

How to Train Yourself to Be More Open-Minded and Less Easily Misled New research shows that cultivating open-minded thinking can be taught, and that this simple shift improves our ability to tell facts from falsehoods.

Can we actually train ourselves to be more open-minded and harder to fool?

New research says yes. A short message warning us about closed-mindedness made people better at spotting misinformation, less likely to believe conspiracy theories, and more thoughtful about what they shared #MisinfoResearch

Media literacy games can be very effective in teaching important skills, and this new game uses an AI chatbot to add an extra layer of interactivity and engagement.
dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1... #MisinfoResearch

How Language Shapes Belief in Misinformation: A Study Among Multilinguals in Ukraine | Journal of Experimental Political Science | Cambridge Core How Language Shapes Belief in Misinformation: A Study Among Multilinguals in Ukraine

New study finds that bilingual Ukrainians were less likely to believe news stories written in their less-preferred language, showing that language itself shapes how people judge information.
www.cambridge.org/core/journal... #MisinfoResearch

Replicability and generalizability of the repeated exposure effect on moral condemnation of fake news - Nature Communications Repeated exposure to misinformation reduces moral condemnation of sharing those falsehoods online. Here, the authors show that this finding replicates and generalizes to new settings and headlines.

Seeing the same fake news headlines multiple times makes people view sharing them as more acceptable, suggesting that repeated exposure can weaken social norms against spreading misinformation on social media.
www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MisinfoResearch

Now Available: Misguided: Where Misinformation Starts, How It Spreads, and What to Do About It, by Matthew Facciani. Includes the book's cover and a blurb by Sander van der Linden. Save 20% with code CUP20SM at cup.columbia.edu.

Now available! Distilling the latest research accessibly and featuring compelling case studies, MISGUIDED equips readers with practical strategies to counteract false beliefs. buff.ly/LOpljfS #Misguided #MisinfoResearch #Misinformation matthewfacciani.bsky.social

OSF

—unlike standard debriefings, which slightly increased skepticism even toward true news.
osf.io/preprints/ps... #MisinfoResearch

Grateful for the recognition and the valuable feedback during the conference 🙌

Looking forward to completing the next phase of the study so that we can share the results with a wider audience.

#misinforesearch #textdiscourse #ChatGPT #evaluationstrategies #telekomstiftung #gradstudentaward

Reducing Misinformation Credibility: How Explanations Impact the Effectiveness of Social Media Warning Labels and Fact-Checking Source Recall - Paul Mena, 2025 Social media platforms have been using warning labels to alert users of misinformation. Although research has shown that flagging can be effective in reducing t...

New study finds that adding brief explanations to misinformation warning labels makes them more effective by reducing belief in false information and helping people remember who fact-checked the content.
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1... #MisinfoResearch

Advocating for a community-centred model for responding to potential information harms - Nature Human Behaviour Contemporary information systems face growing public distrust across a range of issues including public health, election integrity and climate. This Perspective introduces the Community-Centered Explo...

New paper argues that misinformation interventions must build, not erode, public trust, which means ensuring transparency, cultural relevance, and ethical design, especially for communities that may already distrust institutions.
www.nature.com/articles/s41... #MisinfoResearch

Screenshot of the articles title page, including title, authors and abstract

Exciting new publication!
We trained adolescents in epistemic strategies—and it worked. Students became more resilient to online misinformation, with effects lasting weeks.

Read the open access paper:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

#digitalreading #misinforesearch #openaccess #digitalskills

Evidence-based strategies to combat misinformation include strengthening public resilience through media literacy, promoting responsible platform practices, and ensuring transparent, open communication that upholds democratic values.
www.emc-lab.org/uploads/1/1/...
#MisinfoResearch

Discrediting health disinformation sources: Advantages of highlighting low expertise - PubMed Disinformation is false information spread intentionally, and it is particularly harmful for public health. We conducted three preregistered experiments (<i>N</i> = 1,568) investigating how to discred...

Study finds that highlighting a source’s lack of expertise can be more effective than directly correcting disinformation. This approach can reduce belief in false health claims and lower the source’s credibility.
pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39235890/ #MisinfoResearch

Small Tools Have a Big Impact on Spotting Misinformation Think media literacy takes hours of training? Studies of these quick tools show that even small interventions can make a big difference.

My research shows that even small tools—like playing a short online game or getting instant feedback that an image was an AI fake —can help people spot and resist misinformation.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misg... #MisinfoResearch

Cancer: A model topic for misinformation researchers Although cancer might seem like a niche subject, we argue that it is a model topic for misinformation researchers, and an ideal area of application gi…

Cancer may seem like a niche topic, but it offers a powerful model for studying misinformation due to its real-world impact, vulnerable audience, and measurable health consequences.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #MisinfoResearch

Profiling misinformation susceptibility The global spread of misinformation poses a serious threat to the functioning of societies worldwide. But who falls for it? In this study, 66,242 indi…

Link to study:
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
#MisinfoResearch #ScienceSky

What Does a Misinformation Researcher Actually Do? How do social forces shape belief, and can we strengthen our media literacy in response?

In my latest Psychology Today post, I explain how social identity, personal networks, and media literacy shape how we process information.
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misg... #MisinfoResearch

Supersharers of fake news on Twitter Governments may have the capacity to flood social media with fake news, but little is known about the use of flooding by ordinary voters. In this work, we identify 2107 registered US voters who accoun...

During the 2020 U.S. presidential election, just 0.3% of registered voters on Twitter—called "supersharers"—were responsible for 80% of the fake news shared on the platform. These users were typically older and more likely to be Republican.
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/... #MisinfoResearch

Diverse Social Identities Can Protect Against Misinformation Why are some people more resistant to misinformation? Complexity in who we are makes us more open to facts—and to each other.

My first Psychology Today post is online! I write about how diversifying our social identities can protect us against misinformation. www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/misg... #MisinfoResearch

Feedback and education improve human detection of image manipulation on social media | HKS Misinformation Review This study investigates the impact of educational interventions and feedback on users' ability to detect manipulated images on social media, addressing a gap in research that has primarily focused on ...

New publication! My colleagues at Notre Dame and I found that providing brief feedback and educational content significantly improved people's ability to spot manipulated images on social media.
misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/feed... #MisinfoResearch

Using a cultural-historical framework and intervention mapping can help adapt these interventions to better match how people process information based on their education, environment, and conceptual thinking styles. #MisinfoResearch

Tune in to the prebunking network! Development and validation of six inoculation videos that prebunk manipulation tactics and logical fallacies in misinformation Meta-analyses have demonstrated how inoculation interventions increase the detection of misinformation, but their scalability has remained elusive. To address this, Study 1 (pre-registered; N = 1,583...

Researchers developed six short videos to “prebunk” common misinformation tactics and logical fallacies. The videos successfully improved viewers’ ability to detect manipulative content (especially polarization and conspiracy theory tactics).
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
#MisinfoResearch

However, these psychological benefits fade over time, suggesting that any relief these beliefs offer is temporary. #MisinfoResearch

Partisan and non-partisan conspiracy theories’ diverging effects on political participation What role do conspiracy theories play in mobilizing political action? Both historical and contemporary accounts have written on the role of conspiracy…

New study of American and Turkish participants finds that belief in partisan conspiracy theories can motivate political participation.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #MisinfoResearch

Advancing the Study of Political Misinformation Across Countries and Platforms—Introduction to the Special Issue - Edda Humprecht, Sebastián Valenzuela, Frank Esser, Edson Tandoc, 2025 The global spread of political misinformation poses serious challenges to democracies, eroding trust and distorting public discourse. However, research has larg...

Misinformation is a global problem, and online information knows no borders. Understanding how people respond to false information requires global research that accounts for cultural, political, and technological differences. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/... #MisinfoResearch

Disagreement as a way to study misinformation and its effects | HKS Misinformation Review Experts consider misinformation a significant societal concern due to its associated problems like political polarization, erosion of trust, and public health challenges. However, these broad effects ...

A new paper argues that disagreement is a more useful and measurable approach than focusing solely on misinformation, which is often hard to define and politicized.
misinforeview.hks.harvard.edu/article/disa... #MisinfoResearch

Social media prompts to encourage intervening with cancer treatment misinformation Misinformation about false and potentially harmful cancer treatments and cures are shared widely on social media. Strategies to encourage the cancer c…

New research shows that prompts encouraging users to flag cancer treatment misinformation on social media effectively increase flagging behavior without leading to unintended actions like sharing or liking false posts.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #MisinfoResearch

New research finds that people are more likely to believe additive misinformation (new but false details) than contradictory misinformation (false details that replace original ones), especially when reading, possibly because they process and encode additive misinfo more deeply.
#MisinfoResearch

Link to study:
www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1... #MisinfoResearch