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This study investigates how different presentation modalities (text-only, image with text and video with text) influence the perceived accuracy and sharing intentions of climate change-related fake news, examining the mediating role of perceived diagnosticity and the moderating effect of personal involvement.

An online experiment was conducted with 456 participants, who were presented with fake climate change news stories in various formats through Facebook posts. The study measured perceived accuracy, sharing intentions, perceived diagnosticity and personal involvement.

The experimental outcomes reveal the following: (1) Video with text significantly increased perceived accuracy compared to text-only modality, while the image with text modality had no significant effect; (2) The effect of presentation modality on perceived accuracy is mediated by perceived diagnosticity; (3) Personal involvement moderates these relationships, with highly involved individuals being less influenced by presentation modality and (4) Perceived accuracy positively correlates with sharing intentions across all presentation modalities.

Media literacy programs should emphasize the critical evaluation of multimedia content, particularly video, to mitigate the influence of fake news. Policymakers and platform developers should implement robust video content verification tools and tailored interventions to support users based on their involvement levels.

This research offers novel insights into the psychological mechanisms behind the believability of fake news across various presentation modalities. These findings have significant implications for researchers, practitioners and policymakers aiming to improve digital literacy in an increasingly AI-driven media landscape.

This study aims to investigate how message sidedness affects the impact of fake news posted on social media on consumers' emotional responses.

The study involves a face-tracking experiment in which 198 participants were exposed to different fake news messages concerning the COVID-19 vaccine. Specifically, participants were exposed to fake news using (1) a one-sided negative fake news message in which the message was entirely unfavorable and (2) a two-sided fake news message in which the negative message was mixed with favorable information. Noldus FaceReader 7, an automatic facial expression recognition system, was used to recognize participants' emotions as they read fake news. The authors sampled 17,450 observations of participants' emotional responses.

The results provide evidence of the significant influence of message sidedness on consumers' emotional valence and arousal. Specifically, two-sided fake news positively influences emotional valence, while one-sided fake news positively influences emotional arousal.

The current study demonstrates that research on fake news posted on social media may particularly benefit from insights regarding the potential but often overlooked importance of strategic design choices in fake news messages and their impact on consumers' emotional responses.