2025/12/04 by Mario Haim, Philipp Knöpfle, Johannes Breuer · 1 voice
Social Sciences · Arts and Humanities · #Misinformation and Its Impacts #Social and Intergroup Psychology #Media Influence and Health
paper · doi:10.1080/15213269.2025.2595452
openalex publication_date 2025/12/04 · openalex created_date 2025/12/05 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/02
Alarmingly low replication rates have been highlighted across disciplines. In communication science, rates are unknown but replications have some tradition. However, due to the field’s need to adapt to rapidly changing research contexts, replications have largely been conceptual rather than direct. We conduct two in-depth replications to systematically evaluate both forms. For that, we consider online information credibility as rapidly changing research context, serving as signpost for people to regulate cognitive capacities and navigate available information. In one study, Shen and colleagues examined US participants’ credibility of manually fabricated news images. We assess the robustness and generalizability of their findings through a direct (identical stimuli, US sample) and a conceptual (AI-generated fake images, German sample) replication, successfully replicating 71% of the original study’s empirical claims through our direct and 86% through our conceptual replication. Our reflection echoes recent calls for more open science and dedicated data editors.