Media Literacy versus Fake News: Critical Thinking, Resilience and Civic Engagement.

Media Literacy versus Fake News: Critical Thinking, Resilience and Civic Engagement. ‘Truth was fake, fake was true. And that’s when the problem suddenly snapped into focus’ (Rusbridger, 2018). This is the essence of the disruptive age within which we, as journalism educators find ourselves, summarised by the former editor of The Guardian, Alan Rusbridger in the opening pages of his recent treatise on the broken state of news and news consumption. Journalists are presented, as drinking in a different type of last chance saloon this time – yet, once again facing the challenge of restoring trust in themselves and the journalism they produce. However, this time it will take more than a new set of editorial codes to get journalism’s house ‘in order’, since the problem is largely external: the media is ‘the opposition’, disinformation is rife, virtually everything is PR (Pomerantsev, 2015). This paper will consider whether media literacy can help journalists and journalism educators in tackling the age of disinformation through building resilience in young citizens. It posits that encouraging media literacy in news consuming publics, specifically young people, can facilitate a more engaged and critically aware civic society. It will share the initial findings of a project funded by the US Embassy in London, which brought together leading media literacy researchers from the United States and UK with teachers, librarians, journalists, digital media producers and young people to devise a toolkit for building resilience. These key stakeholders took part in a series of workshops in which they listened to young people and shared perspectives, working to a collective aim – a practical strategy for harnessing media literacy to develop young people’s understanding of and ability to withstand ‘fake news’, with a focus on case studies from both the UK and the US. Working collaboratively in this way, bringing together academic research, news providers and the new generation of media users, the project gives voice to young citizens to help us to help them in the age of disinformation and disruption. The research team captured the raw material for an online, open access toolkit for media literacy resilience. After production of the toolkit, it will be shared with all the stakeholders for feedback. Following feedback and adaptation, the toolkit will be available online as an open access resource for use by journalists, journalism educators, media producers, teachers and academics, amongst others. From the US, a recent report by The Data and Society Research Institute, responds to the rise of disinformation by arguing that stakeholders should: ‘a) develop a coherent understanding of the media environment, b) improve cross-disciplinary collaboration, c) leverage the current media crisis to consolidate stakeholders, d) prioritize the creation of a national media literacy evidence base, e) develop curricula for addressing action in addition to interpretation’ (Bulger and Davison, 2018). In the UK, media literacy academics working with the Media Education Association, the professional association in the field, have called for a more ‘joined up’ approach to media literacy in the context of disinformation, saying that ’Issues of bias, truth and falsehood in news are well-established topics for media education. However, fake news is largely a manifestation of much broader problems, which apply to ‘real’ news as well. We need a more systematic conceptual approach; and while media literacy may provide part of the solution, we should beware of oversimplifying the problem, and underestimating the difficulty of the task. (Buckingham, 2019) In line with this, the project applied the key conceptual and pedagogical approaches of critical media literacy (for example, representation) as well as involving other stakeholders in the media and in civil society. The projects objectives were tackled by: 1. using participative dialogic methods to develop new insights into the experiences of young UK citizens with regard to fake news and civic engagement with media, 2 applying the existing research findings from the academic experts to the insights from the young people, 3 working with teachers, trainers, librarians and young people to pilot and evaluate a toolkit for critical media literacy and resilience to disinformation, 4 leaving behind open access resources which can continue to be re-purposed beyond the life of the project, 5 enabling the voices of young citizens to inform policy planning and development with regard to media literacy and civic media. It is hoped that the resilience toolkit will make a small but important contribution to tackling this complex problem, by supporting the development of curricula to help build resilience. This should, in turn equip the next generation of journalists and media consumers to engage in a dynamic way with the challenges of fake news, whilst helping those journalists currently immersed in the quest to re-imagine journalism practice and actively re-engage news consumers

Defending Democracy: Taking Stock of the Global Fight Against Digital Repression, Disinformation, and Election Insecurity

Amidst the regular drumbeat of reports about Russian attempts to undermine U.S. democratic institutions from Twitter bots to cyber-attacks on Congressional candidates, it is easy to forget that the problem of election security is not isolated to the United States and extends far beyond safeguarding insecure voting machines. Consider Australia, which has long been grappling with repeated Chinese attempts to interfere with its political system. Yet Australia has taken a distinct approach in how it has sought to protect its democratic institutions, including reclassifying its political parties as “critical infrastructure,” a step that the U.S. government has yet to take despite repeated breaches at both the Democratic and Republican National Committees. This Article analyzes the Australian approach to protecting its democratic institutions from Chinese influence operations and compares it to the U.S. response to Russian efforts. It then moves on to discuss how other cyber powers, including the European Union, have taken on the fight against digital repression and disinformation, and then compares these practices to the particular vulnerabilities of Small Pacific Island Nations. Such a comparative study is vital to help build resilience, and trust, in democratic systems on both sides of the Pacific. We argue that a multifaceted approach is needed to build more resilient and sustainable democratic systems. This should encompass both targeted reforms focusing on election infrastructure security—such as requiring paper ballots and risk-limiting audits—with deeper structural interventions to limit the spread of misinformation and combat digital repression

The legal framework to address “fake news”: possible policy actions at the EU level. CEPS Research Report, 2018

This paper argues that the current policy initiatives adopted by the European Commission are meaningful, but still incomplete. The policy response to online disinformation should ideally rely on: (i) the promotion of responsible behaviour in conveying information to end users; (ii) the enactment of a proactive media policy aimed at promoting pluralism and improving the exposure of diverse content to end users; and (iii) the empowerment of end users through media literacy initiatives, and supports to user behaviour. This document was prepared by Policy Department A at the request of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection

Countering Extremists on Social Media:Challenges for Strategic Communication and Content Moderation

Extremist exploitation of social media platforms is an important regulatory question for civil society, government, and the private sector. Extremists exploit social media for a range of reasons-from spreading hateful narratives and propaganda to financing, recruitment, and sharing operational information. Policy responses to this question fit under two headings, strategic communication and content moderation. At the center of both of these policy responses is a calculation about how best to limit audience exposure to extremist narratives and maintain the marginality of extremist views, while being conscious of rights to free expression and the appropriateness of restrictions on speech. This special issue on "Countering Extremists on Social Media: Challenges for Strategic Communication and Content Moderation" focuses on one form of strategic communication, countering violent extremism. In this editorial we discuss the background and effectiveness of this approach, and introduce five articles which develop multiple strands of research into responses and solutions to extremist exploitation of social media. We conclude by suggesting an agenda for future research on how multistakeholder initiatives to challenge extremist exploitation of social media are conceived, designed, and implemented, and the challenges these initiatives need to surmount

Detecting fake news and disinformation using artificial intelligence and machine learning to avoid supply chain disruptions

Peer reviewedPostprin

Tackling Hate Speech in Low-resource Languages with Context Experts

Given Myanmars historical and socio-political context, hate speech spread on social media has escalated into offline unrest and violence. This paper presents findings from our remote study on the automatic detection of hate speech online in Myanmar. We argue that effectively addressing this problem will require community-based approaches that combine the knowledge of context experts with machine learning tools that can analyze the vast amount of data produced. To this end, we develop a systematic process to facilitate this collaboration covering key aspects of data collection, annotation, and model validation strategies. We highlight challenges in this area stemming from small and imbalanced datasets, the need to balance non-glamorous data work and stakeholder priorities, and closed data-sharing practices. Stemming from these findings, we discuss avenues for further work in developing and deploying hate speech detection systems for low-resource languages.Comment: ICTD 2022 Conference pape

Elections in digital times: a guide for electoral practitioners

Strengthening democracy and electoral processes in the era of social media and Artificial Intelligence Democracy requires free, periodic, transparent, and inclusive elections. Freedom of expression, freedom of the press, and the right to political participation are also critical to societies ruled by the respect of human rights. In today’s rapidly evolving digital environment, opportunities for communication between citizens, politicians and political parties are unprecedented –– with information related to elections flowing faster and easier than ever, coupled with expanded opportunities for its verification and correction by a growing number of stakeholders. However, with billions of human beings connected, and disinformation and misinformation circulating unhinged around the networks, democratic processes and access to reliable information are at risk. With an estimated 56.8% of the world’s population active on social media and an estimate of 4 billion eligible voters, the ubiquity of social networks and the impact of Artificial Intelligence can intentionally or unintentionally undermine electoral processes, thereby delegitimizing democracies worldwide. In this context, all actors involved in electoral processes have an essential role to play. Electoral management bodies, electoral practitioners, the media, voters, political parties, and civil society organizations must understand the scope and impact of social media and Artificial Intelligence in the electoral cycle. They also need to have access to the tools to identify who instigates and spreads disinformation and misinformation, and the tools and strategies to combat it. This handbook aims to be a toolbox that helps better understand the current scenario and share experiences of good practices in different electoral settings and equip electoral practitioners and other key actors from all over the world to ensure the credibility of the democratic system in times of profound transformations

Detecting fake news and disinformation using artificial intelligence and machine learning to avoid supply chain disruptions

Fake news and disinformation (FNaD) are increasingly being circulated through various online and social networking platforms, causing widespread disruptions and influencing decision-making perceptions. Despite the growing importance of detecting fake news in politics, relatively limited research efforts have been made to develop artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) oriented FNaD detection models suited to minimize supply chain disruptions (SCDs). Using a combination of AI and ML, and case studies based on data collected from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Pakistan, we developed a FNaD detection model aimed at preventing SCDs. This model based on multiple data sources has shown evidence of its effectiveness in managerial decision-making. Our study further contributes to the supply chain and AI-ML literature, provides practical insights, and points to future research directions