Infodemic Antidotes
Researchers explore varying approaches in misinformation prevention
In our rapidly-digital information environment, we are constantly inundated with information. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to critically analyze the credibility and veracity of the content we consume, and “social media plays a significant role in information overload because it facilitates the rapid dissemination of information, fake or otherwise.” Effectively mediating the misinformation crisis requires immediate and intensive intervention that goes beyond reactionary efforts of identifying, labeling, and censoring actors of disinformation and media manipulation. Scholars agree that proactive measures, such as equipping consumers with contemporary media literacy skills, cultivate an evidence-based information environment that is essential in preserving our democracy. Researchers Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden believe that making consumers aware of disinformation tactics and practices aids in their ability to avoid misinformation, and they created a game that aims to foster this awareness. Other research incentivizes “educators, science communicators, fact checkers, and journalists” to advocate for greater reliance on reasoning and evidence as opposed to instinct and intuition. The methods proposed by researchers to address misinformation reveal the ways in which scholars conceptualize information behavior and actors of disinformation. In comparing varying approaches to misinformation, we can highlight what internal and external factors scholars believe impact one’s susceptibility to misinformation.
Misinformation and the Individual
In an article for CNN Business, (featured below) Hadas Gold wrote about Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden’s “Bad News”, a game they claim teaches “people the skills they would need to be able to spot misinformation in social media.” This approach to misinformation assumes that if people understand various disinformation techniques and practices, they will be better equipped to identify and subsequently avoid false or misleading information. In an effort to better understand the game’s capabilities and Roozenbeek and van der Linden’s research behind it, I played the game.
As you play the game, you engage in fabricating and disseminating false information in order to gain “credibility” in the form of followers, shares, and engagement from individual, fringe media, and mainstream media. Along the way, you earn badges for executing various misinformation tactics, such as polarization, conspiracy, and trolling.
While the game does provide misinformation-vetting skills, it fails to explain what factors lead an individual to believe false or misleading information. Understanding how one’s previous knowledge, lived experiences, and beliefs influence their proclivity towards confirmation bias and motivated reasoning may foster greater media literacy and information behavior. I was delighted to see the game stressed the relationship between emotion and misinformation.
Humans are more apt to share information that is emotionally charged, and “as the legitimacy and credibility of authoritative institutions erodes, citizens are left adrift and in search of emotionally affirming alternative facts.” Research suggests “that people fall for fake news, in part, because they rely too heavily on emotion, not because they think in a motivated or identity-protective way.” It is clear there is a strong correlation between reliance on emotion and consumption of misinformation and the current information ecosystem circulates emotional content faster and farther than it does evidence-based information.
Misinformation and Society
Other misinformation research assumes that susceptibility to misinformation is related to one’s epistemic beliefs. This study used surveys to measure individuals’ information behavior, such as reliance on intuition versus reliance on evidence. They found a strong correlation between reliance on intuition and the tendency to believe in conspiracy theories and misinformation.
“If educators, science communicators, fact checkers, and journalists are able to convince individuals to place more weight on reason and evidence, and less on intuition and instinct, and if individuals can be persuaded that empirical reality provides a strong check against political manipulation, then it is plausible that citizens might become more responsive to accurate information about the political and scientific world.”
This approach promotes institutional intervention, as opposed to intervention on the individual level as we examined in Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden’s game. Other misinformation pedagogy confirms this view and the importance of epistemic beliefs. Cambridge University supports epistemic-related mediation for both individuals and institutional, suggesting intervention that can be “embedded in elementary and higher education, or could be one-off training sessions for adults.”
