Online vaccine misinformation and susceptible publics: Understanding the differences between misinformation-immune, -vulnerable, -receptive, and -amplifying publics’ perceptions and behavioral intentions

As misinformation, particularly on social media, continues to be a social problem, a growing body of literature seeks to understand how to correct such messages. This study sought to understand the four misinformation-susceptible publics’ perceptions of messages designed to correct misinformation, and their resultant behavioral intentions. Using data from two studies, one based on MMR vaccine misinformation (N = 1067) and the second on Covid-19 vaccine misinformation (N = 1697), this study served to use the typology of misinformation-susceptible publics across two issues that have been subjected to extensive misinformation in both mainstream and social media. As expected, misinformation-amplifying publics were found to be least receptive to misinformation correction messages compared to the other three groups and reported the lowest likelihood of getting vaccinated. The implications of this work for theory and practice are discussed (135 words).