The Ineffectiveness of Fact-Checking Labels on News Memes and Articles

ABSTRACT

With most Internet users now getting news from social media, there is growing concern about how to verify the content that appears on these platforms. Two experiments tested the effects of fact-checking labels (confirmed vs. disputed) by source (peer vs. third-party) on credibility, virality, and information seeking of news posted on social media. Study 1 (N = 312) tested the effects of these labels on memes, and Study 2 (N = 452) tested the same effects on news articles. Results indicate that, although fact-checking labels do not seem to have a beneficial effect on credibility perceptions of individual news posts, their presence does seem to increase judgments of the site’s quality overall. This presents key implications for theory and design in fact-checking and news consumption on social media.

Notes

¹ In this paper, we focus on the nonpolitical content to avoid the confounding influence of ideology, but in addition to the memes described here, participants did see two memes with political quotes, one of which was labeled consistently with the rest of the stimuli. Participants judged political memes as well; no evidence was found that the manipulation of the political memes, which involved the party of speakers to whom false quotes were attributed, moderated or otherwise influenced the results reported here. Four total versions of the political memes were created, with false quotes attributed to both Republican and Democratic figures. The represented party also did not affect the results reported here.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch

Anne Oeldorf-Hirsch is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication at University of Connecticut. Her research focuses on information sharing as a form of communication in online social networks, with a specific emphasis on the features of communication technology that alter communication norms. Specifically, her work investigates the effects of social media activities such as news discussion, content sharing, and self-disclosure on outcomes such as engagement, learning, and well-being.

Mike Schmierbach

Mike Schmierbach is an associate professor of media studies at Pennsylvania State University. His research focuses on the processes that create impressions of media, including third-person perceptions, credibility judgments, and enjoyment. He is particularly interested in video games, and has also written broadly on research methods.

Alyssa Appelman

Alyssa Appelman is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Informatics at Northern Kentucky University. Her research focuses on journalistic message credibility. Through a media psychology framework, she empirically tests the effects of journalistic norms and practices. Her work employs experimental analyses, as well as other quantitative methods. She teaches courses in journalism and mass communication.

Michael P. Boyle

Michael Boyle is a professor in the Department of Communication Studies at West Chester University. His research focuses on how news media present issues to the public, how and why people use media, and the implications of news coverage and media use patterns on outcomes such as perceptions of media effects. Much of his work has specifically addressed news treatment of protest groups and how such treatment affects participation in the political process. He primarily teaches research methods and media production courses.