Promoting Reliable Knowledge about Climate Change: A Systematic Review of Effective Measures to Resist Manipulation on Social Media

TL;DR

This systematic review analyzes research on combating manipulative climate change information on social media, highlighting effective strategies like corrective sharing and education, while identifying significant gaps in current research and policy recommendations.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive synthesis of existing studies on mitigation measures and identifies key research gaps in addressing manipulation on social media.

Findings

Corrective information sharing and media literacy education are commonly recommended.

Most research does not empirically test proposed interventions.

There is a lack of focus on commercial, political, and multimedia platforms.

Abstract

We present a systematic review of peer-reviewed research into ways to mitigate manipulative information about climate change on social media. Such information may include disinformation, harmful influence campaigns, or the unintentional spread of misleading information. We find that commonly recommended approaches to addressing manipulation about climate change include corrective information sharing and education campaigns targeting media literacy. However, most relevant research fails to test the approaches and interventions it proposes. We locate research gaps that include the lack of attention to large commercial and political entities involved in generating and disseminating manipulation, video- and image-focused platforms, and computational methods to collect and analyze data. Evidence drawn from many studies demonstrates an emerging consensus about policies required to promote reliable knowledge about climate change and resist manipulation.