Source Credibility and the Information Quality Matter in Public Engagement on Social Networking Sites During the COVID-19 Crisis.
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ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Shah Z
PROVIDER: S-EPMC9243660 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
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Project description:Misinformation on social media is a pervasive challenge. In this study (N = 415) a social-media simulation was used to test two potential interventions for countering misinformation: a credibility badge and a social norm. The credibility badge was implemented by associating accounts, including participants', with a credibility score. Participants' credibility score was dynamically updated depending on their engagement with true and false posts. To implement the social-norm intervention, participants were provided with both a descriptive norm (i.e., most people do not share misinformation) and an injunctive norm (i.e., sharing misinformation is the wrong thing to do). Both interventions were effective. The social-norm intervention led to reduced belief in false claims and improved discrimination between true and false claims. It also had some positive impact on social-media engagement, although some effects were not robust to alternative analysis specifications. The presence of credibility badges led to greater belief in true claims, lower belief in false claims, and improved discrimination. The credibility-badge intervention also had robust positive impacts on social-media engagement, leading to increased flagging and decreased liking and sharing of false posts. Cumulatively, the results suggest that both interventions have potential to combat misinformation and improve the social-media information landscape.
| S-EPMC10960008 | biostudies-literature
Project description:One heated argument in recent years concerns whether requiring real name supervision on social media will inhibit users' participation in discoursing online speech. The current study explores the impact of identification, perceived anonymity, perceived risk, and information credibility on participating in discussions on moral/ethical violation events on social network sites (SNS) in China. In this study, we constructed a model based on the literature and tested it on a sample of 218 frequent SNS users. The results demonstrate the influence of identification and perception of anonymity: although the relationship between the two factors is negative, both are conducive to participation in discussion on moral/ethical violation topics, and information credibility also has a positive impact. The results confirmed the significance of risk perception on comments posted about moral/ethical violation. Our results have reference value for identity management and internet governance. Policies regarding users' real names on the internet need to take into account the reliability of the identity authentication mechanism, as well as netizens' perceptions of privacy about their identity and the necessity of guaranteeing content and information reliability online. We also offer some suggestions for future research, with a special emphasis on applicability to different cultures, contexts, and social networking sites.
| S-EPMC7644537 | biostudies-literature
Project description:There is growing concern that online information searchers are overconfident and therefore largely search for information which reinforces their prior attitudes, blinded by confirmation bias. This study tests if this effect can be reduced in content aggregation platforms, when social tag clouds show popular topics among experts. We manipulated (1) confidence in prior attitudes, and (2) the credibility of the expert community that tagged the content. We found that both factors influence navigation in different ways. First, attitude confidence moderated the influence of prior attitudes when choosing how much attitude-consistent content in blog posts to read. When attitude confidence was high, prior attitudes were positively associated with selection of blog posts, when low, not positively associated. After navigation, when confidence was high, the content of attitude-consistent blog posts was more favourably evaluated, whereas when confidence was low, attitude inconsistent blog posts were more favourably evaluated. Second, source credibility moderated the influence of prior attitudes on tag selection. When source credibility was low, prior attitudes did guide tag selection, when high, they did not. With low source credibility, people selected more attitude-consistent content. The findings advance social tagging theories by showing that not only semantic associations, but also attitudes play a role when people select and process tags and related content. The findings also show that credibility and confidence have a different impact on different stages of information selection and evaluation. Whereas credibility is more important when switching among pages, attitude confidence is more important when reading and evaluating the content of one page.
| S-EPMC6333359 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundSocial networking site use and social network-based health information seeking behavior have proliferated to the point that the lines between seeking health information from credible social network-based sources and the decision to seek medical care or attempt to treat oneself have become blurred.ObjectiveWe contribute to emerging research on health information seeking behavior by investigating demographic factors, social media use for health information seeking purposes, and the relationship between health information seeking and occurrences of self-treatment.MethodsData were collected from an online survey in which participants were asked to describe sociodemographic factors about themselves, social media use patterns, perceptions about their motivations for health information seeking on social media platforms, and whether or not they attempted self-treatment after their social media-related health information seeking. We conducted a binomial logistic regression with self-treatment as a dichotomous categorical dependent variable.ResultsResults indicate that significant predictors of self-treatment based on information obtained from social networking sites include race, exercise frequency, and degree of trust in the health-related information received.ConclusionsWith an understanding of how sociodemographic factors might influence the decision to self-treat based on information obtained from social networking sites, health care providers can assist patients by educating them on credible social network-based sources of health information and discussing the importance of seeking medical advice from a health care provider.
| S-EPMC10765284 | biostudies-literature
Project description:ObjectivePublic crises seriously affect social stability and personal health. When individuals are in a public crisis environment, they will have the impulse and intention to share information, which is a behavioral attitude shown in the face of a crisis. Public crisis information sharing intention will be affected by many factors. This study aims to examine how the process of social presence may influence information sharing intentions during a public crisis and the mediating effects of situational pressure, including risk perception of disease infection and consistency of perception of opinion climate.MethodsThis was a cross-sectional study with 505 youth SNS users. In order to collect as suitable samples as possible, a research website was commissioned to conduct a questionnaire in the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in China. This questionnaire was utilized to measure social presence, risk perception of disease infection, consistency of perception of opinion climate and intention to share information about COVID-19. Structural equation modeling was used to examine variable relationships in the research model.ResultsThe results showed that social presence was significantly and positively associated with risk perception of disease infection (B = 0.42, p < 0.001), consistency of perception of opinion climate (B = 0.43, p < 0.001) and intention to share information about COVID-19 (B = 0.48, p < 0.001). Risk perception of disease infection (B = 0.19, p < 0.001) and consistency of perception of opinion climate (B = 0.18, p = 0.002) positively predicted youth SNS users' intention to share information about COVID-19. Risk perception of disease infection and consistency of perception of opinion climate mediated the relationship between social presence and intention to share information about COVID-19 (Z = 2.66, CI: 0.03, 0.15; Z = 2.66, CI: 0.02, 0.16).ConclusionThe study further deepens our understanding of the mechanisms underlying social presence and information sharing intentions. These new findings suggest that some situational cues, including media environment factors (social presence) and perceived stress factors (risk perception of disease infection, consistency of perception of opinion climate) may influence information sharing intention. From the perspective of communication psychology, this study enriched the assessment of information sharing on social media and contributes to understanding of social presence and situation pressure, and it helps to provide specific references for effectively promoting netizens' intention to share information about public crises.
| S-EPMC10367105 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Social networking sites (SNS) are used for social and professional interaction with people. SNS popularity has encouraged researchers to analyze the relationship of activities performed on SNS with user behavior. In doing so, the term "user behavior" is rather used ambiguously with different interpretations, which makes it difficult to identify studies on user behavior in relation to SNS. This phenomenon has encouraged this thorough research on the characteristics of user behavior being discussed in the literature. Therefore, in this study, we aim to identify, analyze, and classify the characteristics associated with user behavior to answer the research questions designed to conduct this research. A mapping study (also called scoping study), which is a type of systematic literature review, is employed to identify potential studies from digital databases through a developed protocol. Thematic analysis is carried out for the classification of user behavior. We identified 116 primary studies for full analysis. This study found seven characteristics associated with behavior that have direct influence on SNS use and nine factors that have an indirect effect. All studies were conducted largely under seven areas that set the context of these studies. Findings show that the research on SNS is still in its early stage. The range of topics covered in the analyzed studies is quite expansive, although the depth in terms of number of studies under each topic is quite limited. This study reports that activities performed on SNS are either associated with user behavior or reflect personality characteristics. The findings of this study could be used by practitioners to evaluate their SNS platforms and develop more user-centered applications. These studies can also help organizations to understand better the needs of their employees.
| S-EPMC5289435 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Understanding patterns and predictors of engagement could improve the efficacy of Internet interventions.The purpose of the study was to characterize engagement in a multi-component Internet intervention for cancer survivors with distress.Data were derived from 296 cancer survivors provided with access to the Internet intervention and included self-report measures and directly-measured engagement with each component of the intervention.Over 12 weeks, average total engagement was 7.3 h (sd?=?11.7), and 42 % of participants spent >3 h on the website. Participants spent more time using social networking components than structured intervention content. Greater early and total engagement was associated with previous chemotherapy, being female, and being recruited via the Internet. Early engagement was associated with greater fatigue and more social constraints.For many users, engagement with an Internet intervention was quite high. Reducing attrition and tailoring content to better meet the needs of those who do not engage should be a focus of future efforts.
| S-EPMC4355154 | biostudies-literature
Project description:BackgroundPublic health organizations have begun to use social media to increase awareness of health harm and positively improve health behavior. Little is known about effective strategies to disseminate health education messages digitally and ultimately achieve optimal audience engagement.ObjectiveThis study aims to assess the difference in audience engagement with identical antismoking health messages on three social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and with a referring link to a tobacco prevention website cited in these messages. We hypothesized that health messages might not receive the same user engagement on these media, although these messages were identical and distributed at the same time.MethodsWe measured the effect of health promotion messages on the risk of smoking among users of three social media sites (Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram) and disseminated 1275 health messages between April 19 and July 12, 2017 (85 days). The identical messages were distributed at the same time and as organic (unpaid) and advertised (paid) messages, each including a link to an educational website with more information about the topic. Outcome measures included message engagement (ie, the click-through rate [CTR] of the social media messages) and educational website engagement (ie, the CTR on the educational website [wCTR]). To analyze the data and model relationships, we used mixed effects negative binomial regression, z-statistic, and the Hosmer-Lemeshow goodness-of-fit test.ResultsComparisons between social media sites showed that CTRs for identical antitobacco health messages differed significantly across social media (P<.001 for all). Instagram showed the statistically significant highest overall mean message engagement (CTR=0.0037; 95% CI 0.0032-0.0042), followed by Facebook (CTR=0.0026; 95% CI 0.0022-0.0030) and Twitter (CTR=0.0015; 95% CI 0.0013-0.0017). Facebook showed the highest as well as the lowest CTR for any individual message. However, the message CTR is not indicative of user engagement with the educational website content. Pairwise comparisons of the social media sites differed with respect to the wCTR (P<.001 for all). Messages on Twitter showed the lowest CTR, but they resulted in the highest level of website engagement (wCTR=0.6308; 95% CI 0.5640-0.6975), followed by Facebook (wCTR=0.2213; 95% CI 0.1932-0.2495) and Instagram (wCTR=0.0334; 95% CI 0.0230-0.0438). We found a statistically significant higher CTR for organic (unpaid) messages (CTR=0.0074; 95% CI 0.0047-0.0100) compared with paid advertisements (CTR=0.0022; 95% CI 0.0017-0.0027; P<.001 and P<.001, respectively).ConclusionsOur study provides evidence-based insights to guide the design of health promotion efforts on social media. Future studies should examine the platform-specific impact of psycholinguistic message variations on user engagement, include newer sites such as Snapchat and TikTok, and study the correlation between web-based behavior and real-world health behavior change. The need is urgent in light of increased health-related marketing and misinformation on social media.
| S-EPMC7935649 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Information sharing via social networking systems (SNS) is a common practice among academics, as well as others, that brings substantial benefits. At the same time, privacy concerns are widespread among SNS users, which may tend to inhibit their maximising the benefit from using the systems. This paper investigates the proposition that SNS user attitudes and behaviour are affected by privacy concerns, and that the effects are subject to significant cultural factors. A broad assessment of the literature provides the context for the study. Working in the context of Saudi Arabia, we apply a mixed-methods approach beginning with in-depth interviews, exposing in detail a range of views and concerns about privacy and SNS use, also allowing us to identify three key factors that bear on SNS usage and users' concerns. Analysis of these factors in the light of the "theory of reasoned action" derives a structural model predicting several hypotheses relating the factors and users' attitudes and behaviour. We assess the model through development of a questionnaire, administered to a large pool of academic participants, that allows us to examine how the model responds in general, and via multigroup partial least squares analyses, differentially to gender and to culturally distinct (Arab vs. non-Arab) constituents of the participant group. Results show good support for the hypotheses and clear gender and culture effects. Picking up issues from the interviews, discussion focuses on users' views about SNS providers' privacy policies and their inadequacy regarding culturally specific ethical concerns. We argue that these views may reflect different regulatory environments in combination with other cultural factors.
| S-EPMC8803144 | biostudies-literature
Project description:While there is substantial evidence that emotion regulation plays a role in the maintenance of substance and behavior addiction, its role in addiction to social networking sites (SNS) remains unclear. Drawing on attachment theory, we explore whether emotion regulation mediates the relationship between insecure attachment and SNS addiction among 463 college students. The participants completed the short version of the Experience in Close Relationships Scale, Difficulties in Emotion Regulation Scale, and Chinese Social Media Addiction Scale. The results indicated that attachment anxiety positively predicted SNS addiction and that emotion regulation mediated this link. These findings suggest that individuals' affective regulation capability should be a target of future interventions and treatments.
| S-EPMC6843004 | biostudies-literature