Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
New York University
Carnegie Mellon University
Zijun (June) Shi, Xiao Liu, and Kannan Srinivasan have been selected to receive the 2022 Paul E. Green Award for their article “Hype News Diffusion and Risk of Misinformation: The Oz Effect in Health Care,” which appeared in the April 2022 issue (Volume 59, Issue 2) of Journal of Marketing Research (JMR).
The Paul E. Green Award recognizes the best Journal of Marketing Research article that shows or demonstrates the most potential to contribute significantly to the practice of marketing research and research in marketing. All Journal of Marketing Research articles published in the the previous calendar year are eligible for the award. This year’s selection committee included Mary Frances Luce (Duke University), Randy Bucklin (University of California, Los Angeles) and Peter Danaher (Monash University). The committee provided the following statement about their choice of Zijun (June) Shi, Xiao Liu and Kannan Srinivasan’s article for this award:
In their paper, “Hype News Diffusion and Risk of Misinformation: The Oz Effect in Health Care,” Zijun (June) Shi, Xiao Liu, Kannan Srinivasan tackle the important issue of diffusion and possible mitigation of unsubstantiated medical advice. The context is Dr. Oz, a TV celebrity physician, who often makes medical recommendations that are not strongly supported by scientific evidence. In turn, these recommendations spawn online customer reviews and online discussion forums, which compete with more traditional news outlets such as newspaper articles by informed journalists. One of the key aims of the study is to examine whether mainstream news agencies attempt to correct the bias and hype emanating from Dr. Oz or online posts.
Advanced machine learning techniques, such as convolutional neural networks, are used to extract four specific features from publication databases, namely, bias correction, positive and negative emotion, and sentiment. Using a regression discontinuity in time method, the authors find that, rather than correcting misleading weight loss treatment claims, legitimate news agencies provide more coverage of the weight loss ingredient. Moreover, these news articles do not attempt to correct the misinformation and generally express a favorable sentiment toward the weight loss ingredient. Online customer reviews also show lower incidence of bias correction after an ingredient features on Dr. Oz, but there is a significant increase in negative emotions expressed in these reviews, likely because the expectation of weight loss is not realized. Given the rapid growth of online influencers, and concerns about misinformation in areas ranging from beauty products to politics, this study provides a method and approach that can be used to tease out features of online content that are based on misinformation and the sources of bias correction or amplification. To date, the article has been recognized by the American Council on Science and Health and has additionally received multiple media mentions.
Read an in-depth recap of this research and an interview with the author team here.
Three other excellent articles were named finalists for the 2022 Paul E. Green Award:
- Aradhna Krishna and A. Yeşim Orhun (2022), “Gender (Still) Matters in Business School,” Journal of Marketing Research, 59 (1), 191–210.
- Yufeng Huang, Paul B. Ellickson, and Mitchell J. Lovett (2022), “Learning to Set Prices,” Journal of Marketing Research, 59 (2), 411–34.
- Hristina Nikolova and Gergana Y. Nenkov (2022), “We Succeeded Together, Now What: Relationship Power and Sequential Decisions in Couples’ Joint Goal Pursuits,” Journal of Marketing Research, 59 (2), 271–89.
Congratulations to the authors of all these articles. The authors will receive the award during the awards luncheon at the AMA Summer Academic Conference in San Francisco (August 4–6, 2023). A special session will be devoted to the winning article and the other finalists at the conference as well.
Go to the Journal of Marketing Research