Credibility as a double-edged sword: The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging

Cristian Vaccari; Andrew Chadwick; Natalie-Anne Hall; Brendan Lawson

Credibility as a double-edged sword: The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging

Cristian Vaccari^*, Andrew Chadwick, Natalie-Anne Hall, Brendan Lawson

^*Corresponding author for this work

School of Social and Political Science

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

Abstract

Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information’s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on UK WhatsApp users (N=2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either BBC News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significantly increased message credibility. Importantly, however, participants’ responses to false messages attributed to BBC News were statistically indistinguishable from their responses to true messages. On personal messaging, source credibility can boost the spread of accurate news but can also be used deceptively to propagate falsehoods.

Original language	English
Journal	Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly
Publication status	Accepted/In press - 25 May 2025

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

personal messaging
WhatsApp
experiment
source effects
disinformation

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VaccariEtalJMCQ2025CredibilityAsADoubleEdgedSwordAccepted author manuscript, 0.98 MB

Cite this

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title = "Credibility as a double-edged sword: The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging",

abstract = "Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information{\textquoteright}s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on UK WhatsApp users (N=2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either BBC News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significantly increased message credibility. Importantly, however, participants{\textquoteright} responses to false messages attributed to BBC News were statistically indistinguishable from their responses to true messages. On personal messaging, source credibility can boost the spread of accurate news but can also be used deceptively to propagate falsehoods.",

keywords = "personal messaging, WhatsApp, experiment, source effects, disinformation",

author = "Cristian Vaccari and Andrew Chadwick and Natalie-Anne Hall and Brendan Lawson",

note = "RRS included",

year = "2025",

month = may,

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language = "English",

journal = "Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly",

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T1 - Credibility as a double-edged sword

T2 - The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging

AU - Vaccari, Cristian

AU - Chadwick, Andrew

AU - Hall, Natalie-Anne

AU - Lawson, Brendan

N1 - RRS included

PY - 2025/5/25

Y1 - 2025/5/25

N2 - Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information’s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on UK WhatsApp users (N=2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either BBC News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significantly increased message credibility. Importantly, however, participants’ responses to false messages attributed to BBC News were statistically indistinguishable from their responses to true messages. On personal messaging, source credibility can boost the spread of accurate news but can also be used deceptively to propagate falsehoods.

AB - Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information’s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on UK WhatsApp users (N=2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either BBC News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significantly increased message credibility. Importantly, however, participants’ responses to false messages attributed to BBC News were statistically indistinguishable from their responses to true messages. On personal messaging, source credibility can boost the spread of accurate news but can also be used deceptively to propagate falsehoods.

KW - personal messaging

KW - WhatsApp

KW - experiment

KW - source effects

KW - disinformation

UR - https://journals.sagepub.com/home/JMQ

UR - https://osf.io/h4jg6/

M3 - Article

SN - 1077-6990

JO - Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

JF - Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly

ER -

Credibility as a double-edged sword: The effects of deceptive source misattribution on disinformation discernment on personal messaging

Abstract

Keywords / Materials (for Non-textual outputs)

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