Attacking science on social media: How user comments affect perceivedtrustworthiness and credibility

摘要

The science on controversial topics is often heatedly discussed on social media,a potential problem for social-media-based science communicators. Therefore, twoexploratory studies were performed to investigate the effects ofscience-critical user comments attacking Facebook posts containing scientificclaims. The claims were about one of four controversial topics (homeopathy,genetically modified organisms, refugee crime, and childhood vaccinations). Theuser comments attacked the claims based on the thematic complexity, the employedresearch methods, the expertise, or the motivations of the researchers. Theresults reveal that prior attitudes determine judgments about the user comments,the attacked claims, and the source of the claim. After controlling forattitude, people agree most with thematic complexity comments, but the commentsdiffer in their effect on perceived claim credibility only when the comments aremade by experts. In addition, comments attacking researchers’ motivations weremore effective in lowering perceived integrity while scientists’ perceivedexpertise remained unaffected.