Factors influencing fake news rebuttal acceptance during the COVID-19 pandemic and the moderating effect of cognitive ability.

ABSTRACT: Fake news is spreading rapidly on social media and poses a serious threat to the COVID-19 outbreak response. This study thus aims to reveal the factors influencing the acceptance of fake news rebuttals on Sina Weibo. Drawing on the elaboration likelihood model (ELM), we used text mining and the econometrics method to investigate the relationships among the central route (rebuttal's information readability and argument quality), peripheral route (rebuttal's source credibility, including authority and influence), and rebuttal acceptance, as well as the moderating effect of receiver's cognitive ability on these relationships. Our findings suggest that source authority had a negative effect on rebuttal acceptance, while source influence had a positive effect. Second, both information readabili

SUBMITTER: Wang X 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8719053 | biostudies-literature | 2022 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature