The Relationship Between News Coverage of COVID-19 Misinformation and Online Search Behavior.

IF 3 3区医学 Q1 COMMUNICATION

Health Communication Pub Date : 2025-06-01 Epub Date: 2024-08-30 DOI:10.1080/10410236.2024.2395155

Ella Douglas-Durham, Andy S L Tan, Karen M Emmons, Kasisomayajula Viswanath

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引用次数: 0

Abstract

The spread of health misinformation poses a threat to public health as it can influence individuals' health beliefs and, potentially, behaviors, and their support for public health policies. The mainstream news media have the potential to inadvertently increase the salience of misinformation through their reporting. This study explores the agenda-setting effects of mainstream news media coverage on public salience of public health misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. We analyzed the association between news media coverage and public salience - as measured by Google Trends relative search volume - of three different pieces of COVID-19 misinformation: (1) hydroxychloroquine is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19; (2) the COVID-19 vaccines cause infertility; and (3) ivermectin is a safe and effective treatment for COVID-19. We plotted news coverage of each piece of misinformation against Google Trends relative search volume over time. Autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) models were used to account for autocorrelation and analyze the relationship between the two time series. News media coverage volume was a significant predictor of same-day relative search volume for hydroxychloroquine and ivermectin. The relationship between news media coverage and searches for COVID-19 vaccines and infertility was not significant. These findings indicate mainstream news media coverage may contribute to the public salience of misinformation. Mainstream media outlets should contextualize their reporting on misinformation with verification from scientific consensus.

查看原文本刊更多论文

关于 COVID-19 错误信息的新闻报道与在线搜索行为之间的关系。

健康误导信息的传播对公共卫生构成威胁，因为它会影响个人的健康信念，并有可能影响其行为以及对公共卫生政策的支持。主流新闻媒体有可能通过其报道无意中增加错误信息的显著性。本研究探讨了在 COVID-19 大流行期间，主流新闻媒体报道对公众对公共卫生误导信息显著性的议程设置效应。我们分析了新闻媒体报道与公众对三种不同的 COVID-19 错误信息的关注度之间的关联（以 Google Trends 的相对搜索量为衡量标准）：(1) 羟氯喹是治疗 COVID-19 的一种安全有效的方法；(2) COVID-19 疫苗会导致不孕；(3) 伊维菌素是治疗 COVID-19 的一种安全有效的方法。我们将每条错误信息的新闻报道量与谷歌趋势的相对搜索量进行了对比。我们使用自回归整合移动平均（ARIMA）模型来考虑自相关性并分析这两个时间序列之间的关系。新闻媒体报道量可显著预测羟氯喹和伊维菌素的当日相对搜索量。新闻媒体报道量与 COVID-19 疫苗和不孕症搜索量之间的关系并不显著。这些研究结果表明，主流新闻媒体报道可能会使错误信息在公众中更加突出。主流媒体在报道错误信息时应结合科学共识的验证。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Health Communication Multiple-

CiteScore

8.20

自引率

10.30%

发文量

184

期刊介绍： As an outlet for scholarly intercourse between medical and social sciences, this noteworthy journal seeks to improve practical communication between caregivers and patients and between institutions and the public. Outstanding editorial board members and contributors from both medical and social science arenas collaborate to meet the challenges inherent in this goal. Although most inclusions are data-based, the journal also publishes pedagogical, methodological, theoretical, and applied articles using both quantitative or qualitative methods.