Dion Hoe-Lian Goh

Purpose: With the advances in AI-driven audiovisual synthesis, multimodal disinformation has become prevalent in social media, where user engagement may complicate its evaluation. It remains unclear why individuals are susceptible to such content, especially in contexts featuring social engagement cues. Therefore, this study aims to investigate the roles of multimodality, online comments and virality metrics in disinformation evaluation. Design/methodology/approach: Guided by the heuristic–systematic model, multimodal framing theory, and social proof theory, we carried out a mixed-methods study with two phases. In Phase I, a between-subjects experiment (N = 433) examined how various cues independently and interactively influenced credibility judgments of disinformation. In Phase II, follow-up interviews (N = 24) uncovered the causes driving the observed effects. Findings: Text-with-video disinformation was perceived more credibly than text-with-image and text-only types. Participants generally considered videos more difficult to forge. This view served as a heuristic that triggered less critical evaluation. Additionally, online comments could correct or mislead credibility judgments, whereas virality metrics showed no such effect. Interestingly, the impact of online comments could be attenuated by multimodality, making participants more susceptible to disinformation. Because audiovisual cues offer sufficient intuitive evidence, participants relied less on social proof for judgment-making. Originality/value: Synthesizing the abovementioned theories, this study advances the understanding of individual susceptibility to multimodal disinformation. This susceptibility stems not only from multimodality per se, but also from its tendency to overshadow the efficacy of social proof in correcting falsehoods. From the information processing perspective, this phenomenon is driven by intuitive sufficiency of audiovisual realism, which satisfies judgmental confidence and renders social proof cues less significant.

Health misinformation increasingly circulates through visually rich formats such as artificial intelligence (AI)-generated short videos, where factual and misleading elements are often blended in w...

Deepfake videos are widely recognized for their potential to manipulate and distort reality. This study aims to identify prevalent deepfake identification strategies among an often-overlooked age group, seniors (55 years and older) and how these strategies develop over time. We conducted a 3-week diary study with 30 seniors, guided by prior work on information credibility and deepfake identification. Four main deepfake identification strategy categories emerged: (1) source, (2) endorsement, (3) media, and (4) content. A common combination was the use of strategies from the media, source, and endorsement categories. Another common combination was the content, endorsement, and source categories. Notably, the number of strategy combinations employed increased over the 3-week data collection period. By incorporating a longitudinal perspective, the study offers a more dynamic understanding of how seniors’ identification strategies evolve over time. Practically, the insights from this study can inform targeted interventions and collaborative programs that aim to enhance seniors’ resilience against video-based disinformation.