Fake News and the Covid-19 Pandemic

As the world continues to tackle the raging COVID-19 pandemic, this panel explores critical issues in fake news, its implications, and evolving approaches to combat it with media literacy. Panelists will discuss themes developed dealing with international approaches to fake news explored in the newly published edited volume, Fake News: Real Issues in Modern Communication. The session will focus on the impact of misinformation and disinformation in a time of public health crises

Online Misinformation: Challenges and Future Directions

Misinformation has become a common part of our digital media environments and it is compromising the ability of our societies to form informed opinions. It generates misperceptions, which have affected the decision making processes in many domains, including economy, health, environment, and elections, among others. Misinformation and its generation, propagation, impact, and management is being studied through a variety of lenses (computer science, social science, journalism, psychology, etc.) since it widely affects multiple aspects of society. In this paper we analyse the phenomenon of misinformation from a technological point of view.We study the current socio-technical advancements towards addressing the problem, identify some of the key limitations of current technologies, and propose some ideas to target such limitations. The goal of this position paper is to reflect on the current state of the art and to stimulate discussions on the future design and development of algorithms, methodologies, and applications

Really Fake

With anchors in feminist theory, queer discourse, and digital politics, Really Fake rescues "fakeness" from the morass of "fake news" and rejuvenates "fake" as a material and tactical reality. This book treats fakeness as a media object itself: "Fakes" are things that travel and circulate through our bodies, sociality, and the technologies that envelop them. Punctuated with anecdotes, experiences, poetry, stories, and a strong feminist ethic and ethos of care, intimacy, and collectivity, Really Fake offers a series of entry points into reframing the debates of fakeness beyond polarized positions of performative outrage

Novinarski diskurs na portalima i Twitteru - medijski poligon borbe medijske pismenosti i lažnih vijesti?

Mainstream media often simply download information posted on social media from unreliable sources without critical thinking and verifying the content. Nowadays, the accuracy of information in all types of media is less important than the number of clicks and views per media content. Due to the fact that there is a proven correlation between the level of media literacy and democratic development of a society, as well as the fact that the media have a great influence on the shaping of public opinion via media framing and agendas, this paper explores the awareness on media literacy of Twitter users in Croatia (primarily journalists) and their perception of their own consumption and dissemination of fake news across social networks and traditional mass media. Although Twitter is not popular in Croatia, it is intensively used by Croatian journalists, and tweets often serve as topics for media processing, which gives Twitter great importance in creating the Croatian media discourse. The research was conducted by encouraging a discussion and undertaking further content analysis of tweets regarding the role of media literacy in combating the impact of fake news, especially on social networks. This was followed by semi-structured in-depth interviews with six journalists who are active Twitter users and content analysis of articles on media literacy and fake news available on Croatian web portals. Triangulation was used in order to reduce the echo chamber effect on the results of the study. The research has shown that respondents, i.e. Twitter users in Croatia – including journalists – are not sufficiently informed about media literacy and its impact on combating fake news. It has also pinpointed their lack of awareness regarding their own consumption and dissemination of fake news across social networks and mass media. The objective of the research was to create a model for analyzing the interrelationship between media literacy and creating fake news from two perspectives: (1) evaluating self-perception of Twitter users via content analysis and in-depth interviews, and (2) analyzing media publications on the topic of media literacy and fake news, whose content reflects the perception of the media on these topics.Matični mediji često nekritički preuzimaju informacije objavljene na društvenim mrežama iz nepouzdanih izvora bez prethodne provjere tih informacija. Točnost informacija za sve vrste medija danas je manje važna od broja klikova i pregleda medijskih sadržaja. S obzirom na činjenicu da je dokazana korelacija između stupnja medijske pismenosti i demokratskog razvoja nekog društva te da mediji stvaranjem agende i medijskim uokvirivanjem imaju veliki utjecaj na kreiranje javnog mnijenja, ovaj rad istražuje svijest o medijskoj pismenosti korisnika Twittera u Hrvatskoj (prvenstveno novinara) i njihovu percepciju vlastite konzumacije i širenja lažnih vijesti na društvenim mrežama i u tradicionalnim masovnim medijima. Iako Twitter nije popularan u Hrvatskoj, njime se intenzivno koriste hrvatski novinari. Sadržaji tvitova nerijetko im služe kao teme za medijsku obradu što daje Twitteru veliki značaj u kreiranju hrvatskoga medijskog diskursa. Istraživanje je provedeno poticanjem diskusije i potom analize sadržaja tvitova na temu uloge medijske pismenosti u suzbijanju utjecaja lažnih vijesti, posebno na društvenim mrežama, polustrukturiranim dubinskim intervjuima sa šest novinara aktivnih na Twitteru te analizom sadržaja članaka o medijskoj pismenosti i lažnim vijestima na hrvatskim portalima. Triangulacija je korištena kako bi se smanjio utjecaj soba jeke na rezultate ove istraživačke studije. Istraživanje je pokazalo kako ispitanici, korisnici Twittera u Hrvatskoj, uključivši novinare, nisu dostatno informirani o medijskoj pismenosti i njezinom utjecaju na suzbijanje lažnih vijesti, a posebice nisu osviješteni o vlastitoj konzumaciji i širenju lažnih vijesti na društvenim mrežama i u masovnim medijima. Cilj istraživanja bio je izraditi prijedlog modela analize međuodnosa medijske pismenosti i kreiranja lažnih vijesti na temelju dviju perspektiva: (1) analize samopercepcije medijskih korisnika Twittera primjenom analize sadržaja i dubinskih intervjua i (2) analize medijskih tekstova na temu medijske pismenosti i lažnih vijesti čiji sadržaj zrcali percepciju medija o ovim temama

Deception Detection and Rumor Debunking for Social Media

Abstract The main premise of this chapter is that the time is ripe for more extensive research and development of social media tools that filter out intentionally deceptive information such as deceptive memes, rumors and hoaxes, fake news or other fake posts, tweets and fraudulent profiles. Social media users’ awareness of intentional manipulation of online content appears to be relatively low, while the reliance on unverified information (often obtained from strangers) is at an all-time high. I argue there is need for content verification, systematic fact-checking and filtering of social media streams. This literature survey provides a background for understanding current automated deception detection research, rumor debunking, and broader content verification methodologies, suggests a path towards hybrid technologies, and explains why the development and adoption of such tools might still be a significant challenge

Fighting Fake News

The book focuses on how different generations perceive fake news, including young and middle-age groups of people, multiple age groups, university students and adults in general, elementary students, children, and adolescents. It provides insights into the different methodologies available with which to research fake news from a generational perspective