Combating Disinformation with News Literacy Interventions: An Experimental Study on the Framing Effects of News Literacy Messages

Despite increasing academic attention, several questions about news literacy messages (NLM) remain unanswered. First, it remains unclear how differences in the framing of the NLMs may influence their effectiveness. Second, we still know little about how NLMs work and, in particular, whether people also adopt the recommendations they are given. To answer these questions, this study conducts an experiment in the Netherlands and Belgium, where we manipulate the frames of the NLM, comparing interventions using a “fake news” frame with those using a “reliable news” frame or a mix of the two. We also manipulate elements in the false news article that participants have to evaluate afterwards. Our findings show that all three types of NLMs are effective in making people resilient to misinformation, without resulting in a general decrease in trust in accurate news (=spill-over effect). In particular, news literacy media messages with a “mixed” frame are effective, as they make people critical toward false news articles, and also result in a higher perceived accuracy of accurate news articles. Additionally, the findings provide suggestive evidence that NLMs work, at least partly, because participants also adopt (some) of the recommendations being given.