Ebook: Misinformation and Mass Audiences

Lies and inaccurate information are as old as humanity, but never before have they been so easy to spread. Each moment of every day, the Internet and broadcast media purvey misinformation, either deliberately or accidentally, to a mass audience on subjects ranging from politics to consumer goods to science and medicine, among many others. Because misinformation now has the potential to affect behavior on a massive scale, it is urgently important to understand how it works and what can be done to mitigate its harmful effects. Misinformation and Mass Audiences brings together evidence and ideas from communication research, public health, psychology, political science, environmental studies, and information science to investigate what constitutes misinformation, how it spreads, and how best to counter it. The expert contributors cover such topics as whether and to what extent audiences consciously notice misinformation, the possibilities for audience deception, the ethics of satire in journalism and public affairs programming, the diffusion of rumors, the role of Internet search behavior, and the evolving efforts to counteract misinformation, such as fact-checking programs. The first comprehensive social science volume exploring the prevalence and consequences of, and remedies for, misinformation as a mass communication phenomenon, this will be a crucial resource for students and faculty researching misinformation, policymakers grappling with questions of regulation and prevention, and anyone concerned about this troubling, yet perhaps unavoidable, dimension of current media systems.;Introduction : misinformation among mass audiences as a focus for inquiry / Brian G. Southwell, Emily A. Thorson, and Laura Sheble -- Believing things that are not true : a cognitive science perspective on misinformation / Elizabeth J. Marsh and Brenda W. Yang -- Awareness of misinformation in health-related advertising : a narrative review of the literature / Vanessa Boudewyns, Brian G. Southwell, Kevin R. Betts, Catherine Slota Gupta, Ryan S. Paquin, Amie C. O'Donoghue, and Natasha Vazquez -- Measuring knowledge in the age of misinformation : importance and challenges in the tobacco domain / Joseph N. Cappella, Yotam Ophir, and Jazmyne Sutton -- Measuring perceptions of share of groups / Douglas J. Ahler and Gaurav Sood -- Dimensions of visual misinformation in the emerging media landscape / Jeff Hemsley and Jaime Snyder -- The effects of false information in news stories / Melanie C. Green and John K. Donahue -- Can satire and irony constitute misinformation? / Dannagal G. Young -- Media and political misperceptions / Brian E. Weeks -- Misinformation and science: emergence, diffusion, and persistence / Laura Sheble -- Doing the wrong things for the right reasons : how environmental misinformation affects environmental behavior / Alexander Maki, Amanda R. Carrico, and Michael P. Vandenbergh -- Misinformation and its correction : cognitive mechanisms and recommendations for mass communication / Briony Swire and Ullrich Ecker -- How to counteract consumer product misinformation / Graham Bullock -- A history of fact-checking in U.S. politics and election contexts / Shannon Poulsen and Dannagal G. Young -- Comparing approaches to journalistic fact-checking / Emily A. Thorson -- The role of middle-level gatekeepers in propagation and longevity of misinformation / Jeff Hemsley -- Encouraging information search to counteract misinformation : providing "balanced" information about vaccines / Samantha Kaplan -- Conclusion : an agenda for misinformation research / Emily A. Thorson, Laura Sheble, and Brian G. Southwell.