Psychological interventions countering misinformation in social media. A scoping review. Research protocol
Introduction
Misinformation is a complex concept and its meaning can encompass several kinds of different phenomena. Liang Wu et el. consider a wide variety of online behavior as misinformation:1 unintentionally spreading false information, intentionally spreading false information, disseminating urban legends, sharing fake news, unverified information, and rumors, as well as crowdturfing, spamming, trolling, and propagating hate speech, or being involved in cyberbullying. The aim of this review is to address the following question: “What psychological interventions countering misinformation can be deployed on popular social media platforms (e.g. Twitter, Facebook)?”. In order to address this question, we have designed a systematic scoping review procedure in accordance with the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines.2,3
Effective measures of countering misinformation on social media are instrumental for facilitating and fostering reliable public conversation about political and social problems. Moreover, countering misinformation on social media platforms can be also considered a public health intervention, especially in the time of health emergencies, such as the COVID-19 pandemic.
Methods and analysis
A scoping review is a modern, rigorous approach to synthesis science, developed among others by the Joanna Briggs Institute team. For data extractions, we plan to use the following databases: Embase, Scopus, and PubMed. For paper selection, eligibility criteria were defined.
