Department of Life Sciences Communication, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI 53706
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 Apr 16;116(16):7662-7669. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1805871115. Epub 2019 Jan 14.
Concerns about public misinformation in the United States-ranging from politics to science-are growing. Here, we provide an overview of how and why citizens become (and sometimes remain) misinformed about science. Our discussion focuses specifically on misinformation among individual citizens. However, it is impossible to understand individual information processing and acceptance without taking into account social networks, information ecologies, and other macro-level variables that provide important social context. Specifically, we show how being misinformed is a function of a person's ability and motivation to spot falsehoods, but also of other group-level and societal factors that increase the chances of citizens to be exposed to correct(ive) information. We conclude by discussing a number of research areas-some of which echo themes of the 2017 National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's report-that will be particularly important for our future understanding of misinformation, specifically a systems approach to the problem of misinformation, the need for more systematic analyses of science communication in new media environments, and a (re)focusing on traditionally underserved audiences.
美国公众对错误信息的担忧日益加剧，范围涉及政治和科学等领域。在此，我们概述了公民是如何以及为何会对科学产生（并有时一直保持）误解。我们的讨论专门针对个别公民的错误信息。然而，如果不考虑提供重要社会背景的社交网络、信息生态系统和其他宏观层面变量，就不可能理解个人的信息处理和接受方式。具体来说，我们展示了错误信息是一个人识别虚假信息的能力和动机的函数，但也与其他群体层面和社会层面的因素有关，这些因素增加了公民接触正确信息的可能性。最后，我们讨论了一些研究领域——其中一些与 2017 年美国国家科学院、工程院和医学院的报告中的主题相呼应——这些领域对于我们未来对错误信息的理解将特别重要，特别是错误信息问题的系统方法、新媒体环境中更系统地分析科学传播的必要性，以及重新关注传统上服务不足的受众。
