Optimizing organizational corrective communication: The effects of correction placement timing, refutation detail level, and corrective narrative type on combating crisis misinformation narratives

Abstract

How an organization effectively responds to crisis misinformation has become increasingly critical for public relations research and practice. To examine the roles played by three key factors in organizational crisis misinformation management (i.e., the timing of placing organizational correction message, the level of detail a refutational message should provide, and narrative type in countering misinformation embedded in narratives), two online experimental studies were conducted among U.S. adults to examine the main and interaction effects of these factors on optimizing organizational corrective communication when it comes to combatting narrative-based crisis misinformation. Our findings implied that prebunking strategy, especially when combined with factual elaboration, is more effective in correcting misperceptions of organizational crisis responsibility and lowering organizational reputation damage. The potential for using narrative-based prebunking strategy to correct misinformation narratives is further highlighted, as evidenced in how its effect was sequentially mediated by narrative identification and perceived corrective information quality. Implications for public relations theory and practice in the area of combatting misinformation are further discussed.