Abstract The interference of so-called social bots in election campaigns has led to public outcries and heavy news coverage about the danger of social bots all over the world. Learning about social bots from news coverage may crucially influence media users' fears from social bots and may undermine trust in online political processes altogether. These negative societal effects may be prevented by mass-mediated information to support literacy about social bots. Using two separate laboratory experiments, we investigated whether mass-mediated textual (Study 1) or audiovisual (Study 2) information to support literacy about social bots reduced perceived threats from bots. Across both studies, we found that news reports about social bots in election campaigns, which do not convey information to support literacy, increased news consumers’ perceived threats for their online political information behavior. In contrast, when news reports included information to support literacy about social bots, these threats were reduced, which could be explained by an increase of perceived behavioral control. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.

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来自社交机器人的感知威胁：媒体在支持扫盲方面的作用

摘要 所谓的社交机器人对竞选活动的干扰导致了公众的强烈抗议和全世界关于社交机器人危险的大量新闻报道。从新闻报道中了解社交机器人可能会严重影响媒体用户对社交机器人的恐惧，并可能完全破坏对在线政治进程的信任。这些负面的社会影响可以通过大众传播的信息来防止，以支持对社交机器人的扫盲。通过两个独立的实验室实验，我们调查了通过大众传播的文本（研究 1）或视听（研究 2）信息来支持社交机器人的识字能力是否减少了机器人带来的感知威胁。在这两项研究中，我们发现有关竞选活动中社交机器人的新闻报道并未传达支持扫盲的信息，增加了新闻消费者对其在线政治信息行为的感知威胁。相比之下，当新闻报道包含支持社交机器人扫盲的信息时，这些威胁就会减少，这可以通过感知行为控制的增加来解释。讨论了这些发现的理论和实践意义。