Blind trust in social media cements conspiracy beliefs

(Press-News.org) PULLMAN, Wash. - The ability to identify misinformation only benefits people who have some skepticism toward social media, according to a new study from Washington State University.

Researchers found that people with a strong trust in information found on social media sites were more likely to believe conspiracies, which falsely explain significant events as part of a secret evil plot, even if they could identify other types of misinformation. The study, published in the journal Public Understanding of Science on March 5, showed this held true for beliefs in older conspiracy theories as well as newer ones around COVID-19.

"There was some good and bad news in this study," said Porismita Borah, an associate professor in WSU's Edward R. Murrow College of Communication and a corresponding author on the study. "The good news is that you are less susceptible to conspiracy theories if you have some media literacy skills, one of which is being able to identify misinformation. But if you blindly trust the information you find on social media, those skills might not be able to help."

Identifying misinformation is just one part of media literacy, Borah pointed out, and people may need a deeper education around social media to avoid falling for conspiracy theories.

For the study, the researchers surveyed 760 people recruited via Amazon's Mechanical Turk crowdsourcing website. The participants were roughly split between male and female as well as Democrat and Republican. The majority, 63.1%, used Facebook and 47.3% used Twitter daily. They answered a range of questions related to the level of their social media news use and trust as well as ability to identify misinformation.

The participants were also asked to rate the truth of several COVID-19 conspiracy theories, such as the belief that the virus was a weapon of biological warfare developed by foreign countries. They also were presented with older conspiracies to rate, such as that the moon landing was a hoax and that Princess Diana was killed by a British intelligence agency.

The researchers found that a greater ability to identify misinformation lowered beliefs in all conspiracy theories--except for those who had high levels of trust in social media information. This is particularly problematic because other research has shown that once a conspiracy belief takes hold, it is very hard to convince the believer that it is false.

"The patterns around trust is one of the most important findings from our study," said Borah. "We need to go deeper into what this trust means."

Borah and her co-authors, recent WSU Ph.D. Xizhu Xiao and current doctoral student Yan Su, suggest that political ideology may play a role in this trust--that people want to believe the words of political figures they admire, whether what they say is actually true or not. Borah said more research is needed to understand why conspiracy theories appeal to people and how best to combat them as there can be serious consequences.

"There are different levels of danger with these theories, but one of the prominent conspiracy beliefs about COVID-19 is that it isn't true, that the virus is a hoax and that can be really dangerous: you're putting yourself, your family members and your community at risk," said Borah.

The researchers advocate for making media literacy part of the educational system and starting it well before college. They argue that such education should include a better understanding of how information can be manipulated as well as social media environments, news production and dissemination.

"There's a long list of tasks to do to keep ourselves well informed," Borah said. "I think there is hope with media literacy and a better understanding of the information environment, but it is a complicated process."

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