Implications of source, content, and style cues in curbing health misinformation and fake news

Abstract

PurposeTo provide human judgment input for computer algorithm development, this study examines the relative importance of source, content, and style cues in predicting the truthfulness ratings of two common types of online health information: news stories and institutional news releases.Design/methodology/approachThis study employed a multi-method approach using (1) a manual content analysis of 400 randomly selected online health news stories and news releases from HealthNewsReview.org and (2) an online experiment comparing truthfulness ratings between news stories and news releases.FindingsUsing content analysis, the authors found significant differences in the importance of source, content, and style cues in predicting truthfulness ratings of news stories and news releases: source and style cues predicted truthfulness ratings better than content cues. In the experiment, source credibility was the most important predictor of truthfulness ratings, controlling for individual differences. Experts have higher ratings for news media stories than news releases and lay people have no differences in rating the two news formats.Practical implicationsIt is important for health educators to curb consumer trust in misinformation and increase health information literacy. Rather than solely reporting scientific evidence, educators should focus on addressing cues people use to judge the truthfulness of health information.Originality/valueThis is the first study that directly compares human judgments of health news stories and news releases. Using both the breadth of content analysis and experimental causality testing, the authors evaluate the relative importance of source, content, and style cues in predicting truthfulness ratings.