Investigating and Improving the Accuracy of US Citizens' Beliefs about the COVID-19 Pandemic: Longitudinal Survey Study

Background: The COVID-19 infodemic, a surge of information and misinformation, has sparked worry about the public's perception of the coronavirus pandemic. Excessive information and misinformation can lead to belief in false information as well as reduce the accurate interpretation of true information. Such incorrect beliefs about the COVID-19 pandemic might lead to behavior that puts people at risk of both contracting and spreading the virus. Objective: The objective of this study was two-fold. First, we attempted to gain insight into public beliefs about the novel coronavirus and COVID-19 in one of the worst hit countries: The United States. Second, we aimed to test whether a short intervention could improve people's belief accuracy by empowering them to consider scientific consensus when evaluating claims related to the pandemic. Methods: We conducted a 4-week longitudinal study among US citizens, starting on April 27, 2020, just after daily COVID-19 deaths in the United States had peaked. Each week, we measured participants' belief accuracy related to the coronavirus and COVID-19 by asking them to indicate to what extent they believed a n

Sensationalism in front page photographs:Content analysis of Dutch popular and quality newspapers

GABI SCHAAP & ALEXANDER PLEIJTER Sensationalism in front page photographs: Content analysis of Dutch popular and quality newspapers Sensation in the news has been a longtime cause for social and scientific debate. Sensational news is thought to substitute 'serious' information needed for serious citizen deliberation. A trend towards more sensationalist news has been described for television. This study analyses quality and popular newspaper photographs in terms of sensationalist content and form. Quantitative content analysis of the five major newspapers in the Netherlands shows that a slight majority of newspaper photographs shows sensational content (i.e. dramatic events such as violence, disasters, or crime). A minority of the photographs has sensational format features (e.g., emotions, close-ups, personalization). In eight out of eleven variables, popular newspapers contain more sensational photographs than quality newspapers. However, in some instances differences in sensationalism within the two groups are greater than differences between the groups

What men and women think while watching the news: An exploration

Contains fulltext : 64372.pdf (publisher's version ) (Open Access)This study addresses gender differences in television news processing. Male and female subjects were asked to verbalize their thoughts while they watched an edited television newscast. The authors use an interpretive procedure to analyze both the newscast's content and protocols of the thoughts expressed by the subjects. Results indicate that women and men differ in the number and types of thoughts they have while watching the news. Most notably, the analyses suggest that women generally experience a lack of information while they watch newscasts that can be regarded as largely masculine in nature. This perception of not being informed culminates in criticism of the news among the highly educated women while it causes embarrassment among the lower educated women. The consequences of the findings and possible uses of the method for future news research are discussed.17 p

Gender-identity, gender-blindness and collective action

Even nowadays, women and other marginalised genders are disadvantaged in society. Previous research is inconclusive on whether social movements addressing this issue should neglect gender differences (gender-blindness) or rather acknowledge and celebrate them (gender-awareness). In two preregistered studies, we investigated how gender-blind and gender-aware strategies relate to support for collective action. Both studies showed that the more women identified with their gender, the more they supported collective action. However, while a common-ingroup identity (which disregarded differences between the genders) was negatively related to support for collective action in Study 1, gender-blindness itself was positively related to support for collective action in Study 2. Gender-awareness was negatively related to support for collective action, but only when controlling for gender identity strength. So, the results of our research indicate that women support collective action more if they focus on similarities instead of differences between the genders. The findings are critically discussed from the perspective of previous literature on gender-blindness on the one hand and critical race theory on the other

I’m About to Lose Control (And I’m Not sure I Like It): The Role of Control and Added Value in the Acceptance of Algorithmic Decisions – Dating

One part of project published here: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-023-01649-

Second screening for news:Effects of presentation on information processing and program liking

This study investigated the effects of second screen presentation mode on information processing and program liking. In an experiment, 121 participants watched a television news program. One group was assigned to a dual screen condition in which participants were required to actively look up additional information on a second screen ('look-up condition'), while a second group were assigned to a dual screen condition in which participants were directly presented with the additional information on the second screen, with no looking-up required ('presented information condition'). In a third condition, the single-screen condition, participants merely watched the news program. Results show that second screening negatively impacts factual recognition and program liking, regardless of presentation mode. While cued recall of information was lower in the second screen conditions than in the single screen condition, participants in the condition with presented information scored significantly higher on cued recall compared to the look-up condition. Analyses show the effects can be explained by the different levels of cognitive load elicited by different presentation modes