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Sharing is caring? How moral foundation frames drive the sharing of corrective messages and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines

Author

Listed:
  • Aimei Yang

    (University of Southern California)

  • Alvin Zhou

    (Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication, University of Minnesota)

  • Jieun Shin

    (University of Florida)

  • Ke Huang-Isherwood

    (University of Southern California)

  • Wenlin Liu

    (University of Florida)

  • Chuqing Dong

    (Michigan State University)

  • Eugene Lee

    (University of Southern California)

  • Jingyi Sun

    (Stevens Institute of Technology)

Abstract

Drawing from Moral Foundation Theory, our study explores if and how corrective messages and misinformation related to COVID-19 vaccines utilize moral frames. Unlike studies that either focused on content-analyzing messages or study how audiences react to moral frames, this study incorporated both a content analysis of COVID vaccine messages and modeling of how millions of audiences reacted to such messages. We combined semantic network analysis, text-mining, and machine learning to analyze a large corpus of Facebook posts about COVID-19 vaccines. Our results showed that both corrective messages and misinformation prevalently deployed moral framing. We also found that while corrective messages tend to highlight the virtuous aspect of morality, misinformation focuses on the sinful aspect. In both contexts, the five moral frames could construct logically self-consistent worldviews. Moreover, for corrective messages, fairness, sanctity, care, authority, and loyalty frames all significantly influence users’ message sharing. For misinformation, only the authority/subversion frame was influential.

Suggested Citation

  • Aimei Yang & Alvin Zhou & Jieun Shin & Ke Huang-Isherwood & Wenlin Liu & Chuqing Dong & Eugene Lee & Jingyi Sun, 2024. "Sharing is caring? How moral foundation frames drive the sharing of corrective messages and misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines," Journal of Computational Social Science, Springer, vol. 7(3), pages 2701-2733, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:jcsosc:v:7:y:2024:i:3:d:10.1007_s42001-024-00320-4
    DOI: 10.1007/s42001-024-00320-4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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