Examining the Democratic Potential of Data Journalism in Curing Misinformation

ABSTRACT

The unprecedented rise of misinformation and its sociopolitical consequences are increasingly setting the research agenda for social science scholarship. Through examining the effectiveness of data journalism in debunking misinformation, the present study engages with the burgeoning discussions on how to develop countermeasures to mitigate the negative influences of misleading information dissemination. By selecting a widely held political misinformation case from the Chinese context—the “Military World Games and the origin of Covid-19”—and conducting online experiment (N = 317) the results of this study prove the perceived objectivity and credibility of data journalism, and its persuasive power to rebut misinformation, particularly for those with moderate-level prior misinformation beliefs. Building on these insights, this study contributes to an investigation of data journalism’s democratic potential to correct problematic information—an urgent task in the face of the “infodemic” threat worldwide.

KEYWORDS:

• Data journalism
• misinformation
• correction
• data visualization
• China
• experiment

Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The distribution of gender, age, and ethnicity in the sample mirrored the demographic features of general Chinese internet users, according to the latest annual report released by the China Internet Network Information Center. Our participants’ educational background was more advanced than the overall population of Chinese netizens.

2 For instance, according to the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer Report, respondents from the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, France, Spain, Japan and other democracies answered that generally, they were distrustful of their government and mainstream media.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Young Scholar Program funded by Wuhan University [grant number 691000001] and The National Social Science Fund of China [grant number 20BXW030].