April 4-6, 2024 • Hyatt Regency • Lexington, KY
Innovations in Health Communication
Innovations in Health Communication
Abstract: Inoculating Against COVID-19 Conspiracies via an Instagram Filter: A Cross-Cultural Study in the UK and the US
The objective of this study is to investigate what types of inoculation are most effective at 1.) reducing people’s trust in COVID-19 conspiracies, 2.) increasing people’s ability and confidence in spotting them, and 3.) reducing people’s intent to share them on Instagram across different cultural boundaries. It is evident from the pandemic that conspiracies can undermine public health initiatives, and it is crucial that researchers find creative and engaging ways to fight against conspiracies being spread on social media for the public’s well-being in future health crises in a global way. To accomplish this objective, we propose an innovative inoculation format via an Instagram filter game, in which users wear an augmented reality tin foil hat and create imaginary internet chaos via their choices in the game. The filter is based on the COVID-19 misinformation inoculation game Go Viral!, which has been rigorously tested (Basol et al., 2021).
Our study’s design is rooted in inoculation theory which proposes a psychological “vaccination” against misinformation (Traberg et al., 2022). Inoculation has been presented with humor (Cook et al., 2022) and through YouTube ads (Roozenbeek et al., 2022) but the interplay of inoculation with humor and ad disclosures needs to be examined to find the most effective intervention. Few studies have compared the effectiveness of active (gamified) versus passive inoculation because active inoculation has only been introduced recently (Compton et al., 2021).
This study employs a 2 (Inoculation Condition: Passive vs. Active) x 2 (Humor Condition: Humorous vs. Serious) x 2 (Disclosure Condition: Ad Disclosure vs. No Disclosure) between-subjects experimental design. The design also includes a control group, in which participants will watch a YouTube video unrelated to inoculation or misinformation. This will be an online survey experiment using student participation pools at a university in the United States and a university in England. For the pre-test and post-test, participants will rate the trustworthiness and perceived manipulativeness of each post. They will also rate their intent to share the post and their confidence in spotting the misinformation.
For the pre-test, participants will answer these questions about their perceptions of six different COVID-19 Instagram story posts (three factual posts and three conspiracy posts). After the pre-test, participants will either view a two-minute Instagram story post in which someone is using the Instagram filter (passive inoculation), be asked to use the filter themselves and make their own Instagram story video (active inoculation), or watch a two-minute YouTube video about toasters (control) (Tom Scott, 2014). After the participant views/engages with the stimuli, they will be asked about their perceptions of the six Instagram story posts again.
The project is a work in progress, but we have already created the six Instagram story posts, and the survey measures have been finalized. The Instagram filter will be complete by the end of December. Once we finish creating the filter, we will launch the online study at both universities in January, and the full paper with findings and implications will be ready to present by the conference in April.
Our study’s design is rooted in inoculation theory which proposes a psychological “vaccination” against misinformation (Traberg et al., 2022). Inoculation has been presented with humor (Cook et al., 2022) and through YouTube ads (Roozenbeek et al., 2022) but the interplay of inoculation with humor and ad disclosures needs to be examined to find the most effective intervention. Few studies have compared the effectiveness of active (gamified) versus passive inoculation because active inoculation has only been introduced recently (Compton et al., 2021).
This study employs a 2 (Inoculation Condition: Passive vs. Active) x 2 (Humor Condition: Humorous vs. Serious) x 2 (Disclosure Condition: Ad Disclosure vs. No Disclosure) between-subjects experimental design. The design also includes a control group, in which participants will watch a YouTube video unrelated to inoculation or misinformation. This will be an online survey experiment using student participation pools at a university in the United States and a university in England. For the pre-test and post-test, participants will rate the trustworthiness and perceived manipulativeness of each post. They will also rate their intent to share the post and their confidence in spotting the misinformation.
For the pre-test, participants will answer these questions about their perceptions of six different COVID-19 Instagram story posts (three factual posts and three conspiracy posts). After the pre-test, participants will either view a two-minute Instagram story post in which someone is using the Instagram filter (passive inoculation), be asked to use the filter themselves and make their own Instagram story video (active inoculation), or watch a two-minute YouTube video about toasters (control) (Tom Scott, 2014). After the participant views/engages with the stimuli, they will be asked about their perceptions of the six Instagram story posts again.
The project is a work in progress, but we have already created the six Instagram story posts, and the survey measures have been finalized. The Instagram filter will be complete by the end of December. Once we finish creating the filter, we will launch the online study at both universities in January, and the full paper with findings and implications will be ready to present by the conference in April.