Evidence map›Paper›PMID 34831688›Full record

ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2021

Communication of Uncertainty about Preliminary Evidence and the Spread of Its Inferred Misinformation during the COVID-19 Pandemic-A Weibo Case Study.

Jiahui Lu, Meishan Zhang, Yan Zheng, Qiyu Li

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 3 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
3citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

3 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Trial
  2. Article
  3. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

4 authors.

Jiahui LuState Key Laboratory of Communication Content Cognition, People's Daily Online, Beijing 100733, China.ORCID 0000-0003-2984-7435
Meishan ZhangSchool of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.
Yan ZhengSchool of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.ORCID 0000-0003-2741-058X
Qiyu LiSchool of New Media and Communication, Tianjin University, Tianjin 300072, China.

Funding

MICRON-NISTH Advancing Curiosity on Responsible AI Grant 200604393ROpen Funding Project of the State Key Laboratory of Communication Content Cognition 20G01
6 · The paper itself

Abstract

The rapid spread of preliminary scientific evidence is raising concerns on its role in producing misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic. This research investigated how the communication of uncertainty about preliminary evidence affects the spread of its inferred misinformation in a Weibo case study. In total, 3439 Weibo posts and 10,380 reposts regarding the misinformation of pets transmitting COVID-19 were analyzed. The results showed that attitude ambiguity toward the preliminary evidence and the stage when the evidence was first released with uncertainty were associated with higher numbers of likes and retweets of misinformation posts. Our study highlights the internal sources of misinformation and revisits the contextual perspective in misinformation studies.

Indexed as

COVID-19Social MediaCommunicationHumansPandemicsSARS-CoV-2UncertaintyCOVID-19misinformationpreliminary evidencesocial mediauncertainty

Identifiers

PMID34831688
PMCPMC8620171

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

None linked

Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.