A digital media literacy intervention increases discernment between mainstream and false news in the United States and India

Abstract

Widespread belief in misinformation circulating online is a critical challenge for modern societies. While research to date has focused on psychological and political antecedents to this phenomenon, few studies have explored the role of digital media literacy shortfalls. Using data from preregistered survey experiments conducted around recent elections in the United States and India, we assess the effectiveness of an intervention modeled closely on the world's largest media literacy campaign, which provided "tips" on how to spot false news to people in 14 countries. Our results indicate that exposure to this intervention reduced the perceived accuracy of both mainstream and false news headlines, but effects on the latter were significantly larger. As a result, the intervention improved discernment between mainstream and false news headlines among both a nationally representative sample in the United States (by 26.5%) and a highly educated online sample in India (by 17.5%). This increase in discernment remained measurable several weeks later in the United States (but not in India). However, we find no effects among a representative sample of respondents in a largely rural area of northern India, where rates of social media use are far lower.

Keywords: digital literacy; misinformation; social media.

Fig. 1.

Percentage of US respondents rating false and mainstream news headlines as somewhat accurate or very accurate. Respondents rated two and four headlines, respectively, in wave 1 and four and eight headlines, respectively, in wave 2. Headlines were selected randomly in wave 1, balanced by partisan congeniality, and presented in random order. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals of the mean.

Fig. 2.

Percentage of India respondents rating false and mainstream news headlines as somewhat accurate or very accurate in wave 1. Respondents rated six of each type of headline. The headlines were balanced by partisan congeniality and presented in random order. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals of the mean.

Fig. 3.

Data are from wave 1. Effect sizes are plotted with 95% confidence intervals. Effect sizes are estimated at the headline level for false and mainstream news and at the respondent level for the difference in perceived accuracy between them.