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BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article

Front. Commun.
Sec. Health Communication
Volume 9 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fcomm.2024.1487213
This article is part of the Research Topic Health Misinformation: Examining Its Presence and Impact across Communication Contexts View all 6 articles

The Media Literacy Dilemma: Can ChatGPT Facilitate the Discernment of Online Health Misinformation?

Provisionally accepted
Wei Peng Wei Peng 1*Jingbo Meng Jingbo Meng 2Tsai-Wei Ling Tsai-Wei Ling 1
  • 1 Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
  • 2 The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    Online health misinformation carries serious social and public health implications. A growing prevalence of sophisticated online health misinformation employs advanced persuasive tactics, making misinformation discernment progressively more challenging. Enhancing media literacy is a key approach to improving the ability to discern misinformation. The objective of the current study is to examine the feasibility of using generative AI to dissect persuasive tactics as a media literacy scaffolding tool to facilitate online health misinformation discernment. In a mixed 3 (media literacy tool: control vs. National Library of Medicine [NLM] checklist vs.ChatGPT tool) x 2 (information type: true information vs. misinformation) x 2 (information evaluation difficulty: hard vs. easy) online experiment, we found that using ChatGPT dissecting persuasive strategies can be equally effective when compared with the NLM checklist, and that information type was a significant moderator such that the ChatGPT tool was more effective in helping people identify true information than misinformation. However, the ChatGPT tool performed worse than control in terms of helping people discern misinformation. No difference was found in terms of perceived usefulness and future use intention of the ChatGPT tool and the NLM checklist. The results suggest that more interactive or conversational features might enhance ChatGPT's usefulness as a media literacy tool.

    Keywords: ChatGPT, Information credibility, misinformation, Media literacy, Persuasive Strategy The Media Literacy Dilemma: Can ChatGPT Effectively Combat Online Health Misinformation?

    Received: 27 Aug 2024; Accepted: 31 Oct 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Peng, Meng and Ling. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Wei Peng, Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.