Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

The Effects Of Source Cues And Issue Frames During Covid-19, Chandler Case, Christopher Eddy, Rahul Hemrajani, Christopher Howell, Daniel Lyons, Yu-Hsien Sung, Elizabeth C. Connors

Faculty Publications

The health and economic outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemic will in part be determined by how effectively experts can communicate information to the public and the degree to which people follow expert recommendation. Using a survey experiment conducted in May 2020 with almost 5,000 respondents, this paper examines the effect of source cues and message frames on perceptions of information credibility in the context of COVID-19. Each health recommendation was framed by expert or nonexpert sources, was fact- or experience-based, and suggested potential gain or loss to test if either the source cue or framing of issues affected responses to …