In a study comparing video and text, researchers found video was more effective in correcting misinformation.

“Video formats are a really effective way to deliver fact-checking information because they can increase attention and reduce confusion, when compared with a regular text-based fact-check,” said lead author Dannagal G. Young, an associate professor of communication at the University of Delaware and a distinguished research fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center.

Dr. Young and Kathleen Hall Jamieson, director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center (APPC) and co-founder of FactCheck.org, studied the use of a 2012 FactCheck.org article and two short videos (one humorous, one non-humorous) produced for its political-literacy companion website, FlackCheck.org

The FactCheck.org article corrected a claim in a flyer from Republican Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia that the Keystone XL Pipeline was “expected to create tens of thousands of jobs.” FactCheck.org cited a State Department estimate of 5,000 to 6,000 jobs expected to be created by the pipeline and reported that the flyer’s figure was inflated. The experiment compared the article to three videos: a 59-second humorous video about the jobs claim developed by comedian Marty Johnson for FlackCheck.org, a 48-second non-humorous video on the jobs claim and an unrelated 62-second funny video of a baby spouting gibberish in a bathtub. From an online panel of 525 U.S. adults, everyone was shown the flyer and four groups were shown the article or one of the videos, while a fifth group only saw the flyer. The groups were questioned before and after exposure to the information.

The study results showed that participants found the text to be more confusing than the videos. In addition, the videos did a better job at correcting not just the number of jobs that would be created but an inference drawn from that about the broader economic impact of the project.

“We were able to change people’s perceptions of the number of jobs that would be created,” Dr. Young said. “Getting people to change their broader belief system is, unsurprisingly, more challenging. But the videos were successful at doing that.” She added, “Correcting the facts is good, but it’s not enough. We want to help people correct the interpretations that are drawn from these facts.”