2025/09/05 by Anita K.C. Liu, Ozan Kuru · 1 voice
Social Sciences · #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Computational and Text Analysis Methods #Media Influence and Politics
paper · doi:10.1080/15205436.2025.2549716
Visual misinformation is more effective than text alone at capturing attention and eliciting emotional responses, and as a result, they are considered to be more influential, given the increasing dominance of the visual culture online. We conducted a systematic review of 134 papers primarily focused on social psychology and communication, excluding the studies oriented toward technology and computer science, such as those involving algorithms designed to detect visual misinformation. The search timeframe spans ten years, from 2014 to 2024. We utilized both the computational method of topic modeling and detailed manual coding of the articles to (a) address the ambiguity surrounding what constitutes or is perceived as visual misinformation, (b) identify the common research themes, and (c) synthesize the effects. We found that research focuses mostly on politics and health contexts, emphasizing visual-based social media platforms such as YouTube and TikTok. We identified and discussed findings in six topics: (a) content, (b) outcomes, (c) interventions, (d) conceptual and commentary pieces, (e) methodological papers, and (f) regulations and propose additional categories to provide a more comprehensive understanding of the conceptual model of visual misinformation. We discuss the implications for the theoretical and methodological contours of visual misinformation research and future directions.