Can Fact-Checking Podcasts Combat Misinformation in South Africa?

• In Event: Global Developments in Digital Mis-/Disinformation and Potential Solutions

Abstract

Potentially harmful misinformation runs rampant on social media across a wide set of countries. We explore how fact-checking podcasts can be used to inhibit citizens’ exposure to misinformation and increase fact-checking behavior. The intervention we study uses WhatsApp-delivered podcasts as an attention-catching method of delivering verified information to individuals who may otherwise have limited access to credible online sources. We partner with the first and largest fact-checking organization in sub-Saharan Africa, Africa Check, and randomize the delivery of variants of their programming to a recruited sample of participants in a panel survey in South Africa. To the extent that citizens seek to form accurate beliefs, rather than engage in motivated reasoning or adopt views of which they doubt the credibility, our intervention is expected to alter how citizens process information, what they believe, and potentially how they behave. The study has implications both for understanding how citizens’ exposure to misinformation can be reduced with low-cost interventions and how the correction of false information can increase citizens’ trust in public policies.

Authors

• Jeremy Bowles, Stanford University

• Kevin Croke, Harvard School of Public Health

• Horacio Larreguy, ITAM

• Shelley Liu, UC Berkeley

• John Marshall, Columbia University