When Corrections Fail in Political Conflicts: Effects of Misinformation Target, Misinformation Pre-exposure, and Political Stance on Misinformation Beliefs

Based on issue context of the 2019 Anti-ELAB movement, this study conducts an online survey experiment on a representative sample in Hong Kong to test the effectiveness of corrections in refuting real-world misinformation from following aspects: 1) the main and interaction effects of corrections with different evidence types (i.e., fact-based, narrative-based, literacy-based) and polarized targets of misinformation (i.e., protester vs. police) in reducing misinformation beliefs; and 2) the persistent effects of misinformation pre-exposure and political stance in strengthening misinformation beliefs. Our findings suggest that 1) all correction types fail to reduce misinformation beliefs and present no different effect; 2) the persistence of misinformation beliefs is associated with participants’ pre-exposure to misinformation; 3) participants with different political stances show different levels of misinformation belief, which depends on whether the misinformation target is congruent with their political stance; and 4) when participants have pre-exposure to misinformation with target contradicting their political stance, they are even more likely to believe such misinformation. We discuss the implications of our findings by answering why corrections may fail to work and understanding the theoretical mechanism of the continued influence effect of misinformation in the context of contentious politics.