A new research project investigating how older adults
respond to misinformation about infectious disease outbreaks received via
WhatsApp is about to begin at Northumbria University, Newcastle.
More than 1.5 billion people in over 180 countries use
WhatsApp to stay in touch with their friends and family. The service is free to
use and allows people to share messages, photos and videos with chosen
individuals or groups.
Social media channels enable fake news and misinformation to
spread quickly through communities. While there has been much media focus on
how this has potentially impacted elections, there is also concern that sharing
inaccurate information has endangered lives, by affecting the ability of public
health agencies to effectively manage infectious disease outbreaks.
Recognising the massive threat posed by misinformation,
WhatsApp – which is owned by Facebook – created the WhatsApp Research Awards
for Social Science and Misinformation. These awards provide funding for
researchers to examine the implications of misinformation spreading on its
platform and identify potential solutions to address this problem.
The awards fund a range of projects examining the spread of
misinformation on WhatsApp in a variety of contexts, ranging from voting
behaviours in elections to how specific populations are more vulnerable to
misinformation.
Dr Santosh Vijaykumar from Northumbria’s Department of Psychology has been awarded US$50,000 to investigate how older adults in India
might respond differently to misinformation received in different formats via
WhatsApp during infectious disease outbreaks.
Dr Vijaykumar is a Vice-Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow
specialising in digital living and psychology. His research analyses the role
of mobile and social media in global health, with a specific focus on the
effects of health-related misinformation and conflicting information in the
virtual world.
He explained: “My specific interest in WhatsApp really
emerges from how consistently it has been used as a catalyst to spread
misinformation related to infectious diseases. This is a serious problem
especially in Brazil and India, two countries which are at high risk of
infectious disease outbreaks, which are also among WhatsApp’s biggest markets.
“One of the most recent cases was that of the Nipah Virus
outbreak in India, where a lot of misinformation spreading via WhatsApp posed
enormous challenges to public health officials trying to manage the
situation. Messages were circulating
among communities suggesting that the outbreak was a corporate conspiracy, and
that the flesh of chicken was a fertile host for the virus. These messages
meant that people were reluctant to work with public health teams, putting
their own health at risk.”
He added: “WhatsApp is very popular among older adults in
India and previous psychology research has found that the misinformation effect
is more pronounced in older adults as opposed to those in younger age groups.
This means that older adults are especially vulnerable to believing information
that they are presented with.
Dr Vijaykumar is bringing together an international team of
researchers from the Universities of Edinburgh and Georgia, the Health Systems
Research India Initiative and Srishti School of Art, Design and Technology on
the project.
“We will analyse media coverage, interview health officials,
and conduct experiments involving older adults and their children as part of
this study,” he said. “That will give us both, a policy level insight into the
kinds of problems that misinformation on WhatsApp poses, and also a community
level perspective into the kinds of vulnerabilities that viral misinformation
on WhatsApp creates among older adults.
“The aim is to blend ideas from various disciplines –
psychology, media studies, design and public health – to examine this problem.
Hopefully, we can generate new insights that will be valuable not only to
WhatsApp but also public health agencies and vulnerable populations.”
Mrinalini
Rao, Lead Researcher at Whatsapp, said: “WhatsApp is looking forward to working with the
research team from Northumbria University and its partners. The consequences of
misinformation are real and we know this is a long-term challenge that requires
action from civil society, government, and technology companies. The
independent research conducted by Northumbria University will make a meaningful
contribution to how we build WhatsApp for the years to come.”
Dr Claudia Pagliari, Director of Global eHealth at the
University of Edinburgh’s Usher Institute and one of the co-Investigators on
the study, added: “The deliberate and inadvertent spread of misinformation on
social media is killing people, disrupting services, damaging community cohesion
and decreasing trust in important public institutions. I’m delighted that
Facebook/WhatsApp has decided to sponsor a set of projects that will build our
understanding of these problems and suggest solutions that can be integrated
into digital design.
“Our project extends our previous research on crowdsourcing
and social media in health, as well as in digital ethics, to discover how false
rumours about the transmission and prevention of infectious diseases spreads on
WhatsApp. We’re particularly interested in the factors that determine how it is
trusted, interpreted and acted upon by older adults in India.”
The project will begin in January 2019 and is expected to
report its preliminary findings to WhatsApp in May 2019.
Dr Vijaykumar is a member of Northumbria University’s
multi-disciplinary team of academics researching digital living. The team
comprises experts from psychology, computing, architecture, design, business
and engineering who are looking at the ways that digital technologies can
revolutionise our lives and cities.
