Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic—A Weibo Case Study

Jiahui Lu, Meishan Zhang, Yan Zheng and Qiyu Li
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Jiahui Lu: State Key Laboratory of Communication Content Cognition, People’s Daily Online, Beijing 100733, China
Meishan Zhang: School of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Yan Zheng: School of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China
Qiyu Li: School of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 22, 1-17

Abstract: The rapid spread of preliminary scientific evidence is raising concerns on its role in producing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated how the communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence affects the spread of its inferred misinformation in a Weibo case study. In total, 3439 Weibo posts and 10,380 reposts regarding the misinformation of pets transmitting COVID-19 were analyzed. The results showed that attitude ambiguity toward the preliminary evidence and the stage when the evidence was first released with uncertainty were associated with higher numbers of likes and retweets of misinformation posts. Our study highlights the internal sources of misinformation and revisits the contextual perspective in misinformation studies.

Keywords: social media; COVID-19; misinformation; uncertainty; preliminary evidence (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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