Misinformation or hard to tell? An eye-tracking study to investigate the effects of food crisis misinformation on social media engagement

Visual misinformation about ongoing contaminated food crises poses a significant threat to organizational well-being and public health, particularly when people share incorrect images on social media. Corrective responses and highly credible media sources as effective strategies geared toward combating crisis misinformation. Extending Lewandowsky and colleagues’ (2012) corrective strategies for debunking misinformation, the concept of visual misinformation, cognitive process, and the theory of social sharing of emotion, this study aims to advance research on visual misinformation in public relations and crisis communication. A 2 (image veracity: incorrect vs. true) x 2 (corrective strategy: simple rebuttal vs. simple rebuttal + fact elaboration) x 2 (source credibility: high vs. low) between-subjects eye-tracking experiment was conducted to test the effects of these features on visual attention and intention to share. Additionally, we explored the mediation effects of emotional surprise and perceived crisis severity on sharing posts. Results showed visual cues (e.g., images and sources) and textual cues (e.g., corrective strategies) led to different allocations of visual attention. We found visual attention significantly mediated the effects of combined corrective messages on sharing. Additionally, feeling surprised also significantly mediated the effects of messages with low credible sources on sharing. This study provides insights into advancing crisis communication theory and offers evidence-based recommendations for health organizations and practitioners to better fight against food crisis misinformation.