Misinformation refers to a claim that contradicts or distorts verifiable facts. The spread of misinformation poses significant risks in multiple contexts across politics, public health, climate change, and advertising, and this spread is accelerated in the age of social media. The goal of this special issue is to spur and advance cutting-edge research on interventions and mechanisms to combat mis- and disinformation. There are different types of misinformation, including outright lies, conspiracy theories, casting doubt, and innuendo. Disinformation refers to the subset of misinformation claims that are intentionally created or shared.
There are three players in the online misinformation ecosystem: publishers, platforms, and people. Publishers refer to content creators, such as traditional media companies or individuals who create content. This content is posted on platforms and shared by people with their networks. Interventions to mitigate misinformation can target or co-opt any of these three players. For example, interventions targeting people can get them to better discern truth from falsehood, to increase their sharing of true information, to reduce their sharing of false information, or to fact-check information before sharing it. A recent megastudy (Fazio et al. 2024) compared the efficacy of nine different interventions and found that they were all helpful taken in isolation, but the study did not comment on their joint effect. This could provide an opportunity for intervention design.
To spur creative ideas, as well as reduce the incentive to try small, incremental ideas that are likely to be statistically significant but may not be practically meaningful, we are soliciting registered reports.[1] “Registered Reports is a publishing format that emphasizes the importance of the research question and the quality of methodology by conducting peer review prior to data collection. High quality protocols are then provisionally accepted for publication if the authors follow through with the registered methodology” (OSF n.d.). This call for papers asks authors to submit a registered report that proposes new empirical work designed to initiate, develop, and test potential solutions to mitigating the generation and propagation of mis- and disinformation, in an ecologically valid way. Our goal is to encourage the testing of theory-driven ideas that are feasible and scalable.
Authors should address key questions in their submission in addition to presenting the theoretical framework or mechanism, relevant pretests and pilot studies, and the proposed empirical test. These key questions include whether the proposed interventions would work on real social platforms, whether they are desirable from a societal standpoint, the potential downsides and criticisms of the intervention, their feasibility and scalability, and whether the effects are persistent over time. It is also critical to carefully consider the relevant outcomes of interest to combat misinformation.
Interventions could be related to the key players and could address topics such as (but are not limited to):
- PUBLISHERS
- Addressing the goals of generating fake news
- Tackling incentives and disincentives for publishers
- PLATFORM
- Creating products such as algorithmic and platform-based solutions
- Testing platform-based cues (e.g., fake-news flags) and policies (e.g., account restrictions)
- PEOPLE
- Building communities/societies that are resilient to fake news
- Testing cognitive and motivational mechanisms to increase discernment of truth vs. falsehood and reduce spread of fake news
In addition, interventions could test potential policy solutions or address incentives for platforms, such as their revenue streams (e.g., advertising-based interventions).
We welcome submissions that feature empirical work, whether experimental or nonexperimental, including field studies. Submissions that propose solutions based on original conceptual insights, methodological innovations, and that offer clear managerial or policy contributions are particularly welcome. Pretesting and pilot-testing ideas can help improve the strength of the registered report; such pretesting of stimuli/methods/measures and pilot testing, along with appropriate power analysis, can be included to establish proof of concept, effect size estimations, and the feasibility of proposed methods. Any pilot experiments should be included in the final version of the manuscript (in the main text or the appendix) and should be clearly distinguished from data obtained for the manuscript via preregistered study/studies as proposed in the initial registered report submission.
Submission Details
Submissions will undergo a two-step double-anonymized review process, with the first step being the submission of a registered report and the second step being the submission of the manuscript (if the registered report is accepted). Registered reports will be screened by the guest editors and those that pass the initial screen will be sent to reviewers for feedback. The same reviewers will be requested to review the manuscript as well.
Step 1: Registered Report Submission
Authors will first submit a registered report via JPPM’s ScholarOne site (please select “Special Issue Submission” as the manuscript type). This is essentially a proposal in the form of a partial manuscript that includes hypotheses, rationale for the proposed study/studies, experimental design, and methods. The authors should also propose a timeline (which should not exceed nine months) for completing the registered study/studies and agree to preregister their study/studies before conducting it/them. Registered reports should be anonymized for peer review. Authors are strongly encouraged to submit the proposed studies for IRB approval at this stage. If the registered report is accepted, this amounts to provisional acceptance of the final manuscript regardless of the outcome of the study. Registered reports should not exceed 5,000 words of text without including references.
Step 2: Manuscript Submission
For the registered reports that are accepted, authors will be asked to follow through with their plan for data collection and to supplement the registered report with the results of their empirical work (conducted after preregistration). Authors will have up to nine months to conduct the study/studies and submit the manuscript. The complete manuscript will be reviewed for adherence to the proposal contained in the registered report and its accordance with Open Science principles such as making data available in a repository and access to complete stimuli and study materials in a web appendix. Acceptance is not contingent on the results supporting the predictions stated in the registered report. Final manuscript submissions must adhere to Journal of Public Policy & Marketing’s submission guidelines.
Q&A Webinar
The special issue editors will be holding a free webinar to discuss the special issue and answer any questions you might have. Sign up to attend here.
Webinar date/time: Friday, January 24, 2025, 9–10 a.m. U.S. Eastern Time
For specific questions, please contact the special issue editors at jppm.mitigate.misinfo@gmail.com.
Registered Report Submission Deadline: September 15, 2025
Special Issue Editors
Gita Johar, Columbia Business School, Columbia University
Leonard Lee, Institute for the Public Understanding of Risk (IPUR) and NUS Business School, National University of Singapore
[1] Note here that invited submission of a registered report is different from requiring preregistration of studies. Preregistered empirical studies refer to the registration of hypotheses and plans for data collection and analysis in sites such as AsPredicted or OSF. Such preregistration will be required only if a registered report submission is accepted by the journal.