Providing health information via Twitter: professional background and message style influence source trustworthiness, message credibility and behavioral intentions
Year: 2021
Type: article
Abstract: Since the COVID-19 pandemic hit the global community, politicians as well as scientists increasingly turn to Twitter to share urgent health information using various message styles. The results of our 2x2 between-subject experiment show that if a Tweet is written in lower-case letters, participants perceive the information source as more trustworthy. Furthermore, the information is perceived as more credible, and people are more willing to read the health information and share it via social media. Furthermore, scientists are perceived as possessing more expertise than politicians. However, politicians are perceived as possessing more integrity and benevolence than scientists.
Source: Journal of Science Communication
DOI: 10.22323/2.20040204
Authors: Lars König, Priska Breves
Institution: University of Würzburg
Language: English
Subfield: Communication
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W3177314733