Published: 2024-09-02

Misinformation and disinformation have been associated with various harms, from inciting violence to causing people to make poor choices. Several faculty members from the Department of Communication Studies addressed the social impact of mis/disinformation and possible strategic communication interventions in their papers presented at the 74th International Communication Association (ICA) Conference in Gold Coast, Australia.

They were among the 73 faculty and students from the School of Communication who took part in the conference — one of the largest delegations at this year’s conference.

Combating misinformation about public health messages

Public health is one of the areas where mis/disinformation has become a major threat. This threat was more pronounced during the pandemic when the media worldwide were saturated with all manners of news, opinions, rumours, myths, falsehoods, and conspiracy theories about COVID-19 and the vaccine. This infodemic resulted in confusion about which health precautions to adhere to, which information sources to trust, and how to stay abreast of the evolving information about the disease. Critical health decisions such as how to stay safe during the pandemic, and whether to take the vaccine or not were made based on the kind of information people were exposed to as well as how they understood and interpreted the information they received.

Stephanie Tsang

Stephanie Tsang, Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Studies and the Director of HKBU Fact Check noted that it is vital to understand the criteria that people often use to evaluate the authenticity of health information on social media platforms. Tsang’s paper titled, ‘Evaluating the Authenticity of Online Health Messages: Evidence from Eye Tracking’ presented in the Health Communication Division at the ICA conference investigated how individuals assess online health communication, and how their personal stances and their attention to health information influence their acceptance of health messages. Preliminary findings from an eye-tracking experiment revealed that the persuasive narratives employed in vaccine-related misinformation significantly influences audience attention. This inadvertently affects people’s assessment and acceptance of health misinformation on social media.

Ran Wei, Chair Professor and Associate Dean of Research and Development, explored this phenomenon from a different perspective. His co-authored paper titled, ‘The Effects of Fear of Missing Out and Perceived Prevalence on Acceptance of Misinformation About COVID-19 on China’s Social Media Platforms’, presented in the Chinese Communication Association Partner Panel at ICA shed light on how Chinese social media users respond to the milieu of misinformation following the termination of the zero-COVID policy in China. Wei and his team investigated the interaction between people’s intensive use of social media and their exposure to health misinformation to understand how they predict the acceptance of such information. From a survey of Beijing residents, they observed that the susceptibility of Chinese social media users to misinformation was driven by their psychological state (the fear of missing out) and by the perceived social endorsement of such misinformation.

Ran Wei

Another paper by Wei and his co-authors titled ‘A Comparative Study of Public Support for the Zero-COVID Policy in Beijing, Taipei and Singapore: The Role of Media Attention and Perceived Social Impact’ presented in the Health Communication Division at ICA sought to understand public opinion about government’s pandemic-control policy in three Asia societies, Beijing, Taipei, and Singapore. The authors comparatively analysed how residents of the three cities pay attention to and process the information about their nation’s policies to control the outbreak. From a telephone survey of the respondents, Wei and his team found that the level of strictness of pandemic control measures in the three cities matched the public’s attention paid to the policy, the perceived social impact of the policy, as well as the extent to which they supported the policy.

Shuo Zhou

As the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated health disparities, Shuo Zhou, Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies, in her research, highlighted the potential benefits of virtual global health activities in promoting health equity across the world. Zhou’s paper titled ‘Income-Based Disparities in Perceived Benefits and Challenges of Virtual Global Health Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Mixed-Methods Analysis’, presented in the Health Communication Division at ICA, compares the perceived challenges and benefits of virtual global health activities between respondents in low- and high-income countries. Findings from respondents in 34 countries revealed that better access to global health resources, wider reach and participation, and reduced cost are some benefits of virtual global health activities, while lack of physical hands-on experience, and poor virtual facilities are some of its challenges. Zhou’s study suggests ways that virtual global health activities can be better harnessed to bridge the global health divide.

Unraveling the impact of strategic communication and organisations’ shared purpose

Beyond the broader societal consequences of mis/disinformation, the negative impact of falsehood can also trickle down to organisations, corporations, and businesses. Unchecked spread of misleading information in organisations can lead to financial losses, reduced customer-employee trust, toxic work environment, poor productivity, susceptibility to data breaches and cybersecurity attacks, all of which can malign the company’s reputation. One central variable required for organisations to operate optimally, for businesses to run smoothly, and for society to function optimally is the creation and implementation of effective communication strategies that will combat the growing spate of mis/disinformation.

Regina Chen

Likewise, to drive performance and productivity, enterprises are beginning to engage in shared purpose, a widely shared commitment to an organisations’ fundamental values. Although the shared commitment to an organisation’s purpose proves valuable in providing motivation and direction for employees, Regina Chen, Professor and Head of the Department of Communication Studies, argues that organisations may hit roadblocks if they are incapable of fulfilling their stated purposes. Chen, in her co-authored paper titled ‘The Role of Communication in a Shared-Purpose-Driven Organisation, Social Impact, and Tensions’, presented in a Panel Session at the ICA conference, explored the tensions that arise from shared purpose. The study emphasizes the role of strategic communication in resolving these tensions and highlights the strategies employed by communication professionals to address these challenges.

In a related paper titled ‘Toward an Architecture of Shared-Purpose-Driven Organisations: Reorienting Communication and Public Relations to Purpose’ presented in the Public Relations Division at ICA, Chen and her co-authors suggest that public relations is another viable way that the shared purpose of an organisation can be developed to incorporate the values of internal and external stakeholders. They highlighted three steps that can be adopted to achieve this. The first step is for organisations to accept societal values as part of its shared purpose. The second step is that the shared purpose should be authentically crafted in a way that motivates stakeholders and employees to perform beyond their personal interest. The third step is for the leadership of the organisation to actively align the purpose with that of the employees. Chen’s research proposes a strategic communication architecture for transforming organisations to become truly purpose-driven.

The above studies underscore the need for governments, institutions, professionals, and academics to strengthen strategic communication to tackle the spate of misinformation. These papers also emphasize on building societal and organisational resilience against false and misleading information through media literacy, fact-checking, and the effective implementation of public relations and shared purpose on the organisational level.