Mis- and disinformation in elections, fuelled and exacerbated by social networks, is not a new phenomenon. Public service media are often credited as an antidote. Is this deserved? And does it mean societies are now better prepared and equipped to deal with ‘fake news’?
By Minna Horowitz, Docent / Researcher at the University of Helsinki, and Marius Dragomir, Director of the Media and Journalism Research Center
Research Insight presented by the Public Media Alliance (PMA)
in partnership with IAPMR
Disinformation – its sources, topics, dissemination, and impact – has arguably been one of the most discussed and researched communication phenomena in the past decade. Yet, what we really know about ways to counter it is not evident. To start with, no single, unified, definition for disinformation or so-called ‘fake news’ exists. To add to this definitional ambiguity, acquiring a comprehensive picture of disinformation spreading online is difficult because researchers do not have sufficient access to platform data to get a general overview of the prevalence of disinformation, its themes, sources, and so on.