大象传媒

Dr Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Director of the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism and Professor of Political Communication at the University of Oxford, presented the first preliminary findings from research into the effectiveness of different interventions designed to counter false and misleading information about COVID-19 on social media platforms in different ways across the UK, Brazil, and India.

Preliminary findings suggested that people are generally sceptical of information they see on social media and are broadly able to identify false or partly false information. The addition of fact checking labels from news providers and independent fact checkers meant some people were less likely to share misleading posts and acted as a deterrent.

Dr Rasmus Kleis Nielsen said: “Most people are sceptical of information they come across online, especially on social media and other platforms, and research suggests that independent fact-checkers not only help set the record straight, but also have a disciplining effect anyone who may be tempted to share misinformation.”

“Tactical interventions like labelling false and misleading posts or providing more context on news stories can have a demonstrable, significant effect, though research shows that they don’t always work equally well, or the same way, in every country. This underlines the importance of drawing on actual evidence when we seek to counter and contain misinformation, and testing things in different contexts. If we stick to doing things that feel good or look good, the risk is we do nothing to actually improve the situation”.

The work has been funded by the 大象传媒 World Service and conducted independently by a team of academic researchers. This is one of the largest internationally, comparative-cross country experiments ever conducted to test the effectiveness of different interventions designed to counter false and misleading information online.

Jamie Angus, 大象传媒 Senior Controller Output and Commissioning, said: “The debate about how to tackle fake news and disinformation needs a solid evidence base. This research from the RISJ will no doubt shape the debate about how best to tackle the spread of misinformation and inform conversations amongst partners in the Trusted News Initiative. We are fascinated to hear Dr Ramus Nielsen outline the preliminary findings.”

Preliminary analysis

In the experiments people generally rated false or misleading posts as ‘not at all accurate’ or ‘not very accurate’, and furthermore, attaching labels from independent factcheckers warning against “false information” or “partly false information” in some cases significantly reduced the already low perceived accuracy of these posts, and furthermore significantly reduce people’s inclination to share the false or misleading posts.

The experiments found significant results in India, similar to what has been found in previous research in the US. (The results in Brazil and the UK were not statistically significant.)

Another finding is that people generally rate news items included in the experiments as relatively accurate, suggesting most people still have a clear sense of the difference between news reporting and false or misleading information.

Dr Rasmus Kleis Nielsen said: “Brand logos provide important cues to media users, reminding them that the content in question from 大象传媒, O Globo or the Indian Express is not just any random site on the internet, and more broadly, most respondents in our experiments see a very clear difference between news reports and false or misleading information.”

How the research was conducted

The research involved a series of online experiments conducted with respondents from the UK, Brazil, and India, with control groups and treatment groups. Each experiment in each country involved a sample of about 1,000 respondents, representative of the population that uses the internet, for a total of about 9,000 respondents. In the UK and Brazil the sample had quotas for age, gender, region and income. In India, the research was limited to English-speaking respondents, and had quotas for age, gender and region. The studies were pre-registered. Full findings and all underlying research will be published after peer review.

大象传媒 strengthens commitment to tackling misinformation across the UK and the globe

Last week the 大象传媒’s Director General Tim Davie outlined part of the 大象传媒’s strategy to best serve the needs of the audiences would be delivering impact across the world, tackling misinformation and reflecting UK culture and values.

Speaking at the Trust in News conference today, Tim Davie confirmed the 大象传媒 is strengthening its disinformation work and spoke about the importance of working together within the Trusted News Initiative framework to tackle the harmful spread of disinformation.

Tim Davie said: “I think it’s critical to work with other partners such as the Trusted News Initiative. The whole topic can be pretty daunting when you see the scale of change going on. This is a moment when we need a coalition of the willing and together with partners we can create scale and some standards and systems to fight disinformation.”

Speaking about the need for impartial news Tim Davie said “We need to be activists for impartiality” and he also called out the need to support journalists in the UK and abroad, who face attacks on their journalism.

“These are times when more and more people want to control their message…This leads to profound threats to the proper functioning of democratic debate and the airing of truth which we fundamentally believe is critical to society. Jeopardy levels are rising and that’s why the Trusted News Initiative is important….This is a time where pressure will be felt and we’re going to have to stand up and fight for what’s right. Many journalists are facing incredible pressures in terms of online abuse. The amount of incoming for many journalists around the world is very significant and I don’t just mean in more far flung places, that is happening here and abroad…. We’ve got to protect and support staff whilst doing our job.”

The 大象传媒 World Service is working on plans to extend its media education activities in India, where audiences face some of the biggest challenges in navigating a partial, noisy and diverse media environment.

The 大象传媒 Monitoring team will work alongside 大象传媒 Local Radio to connect with local audiences and hear from them what disinformation they are coming across in their networks, how to spot false claims and reflecting their stories on air.

The 大象传媒 will continue to work to tackle the harmful spread of disinformation by leading the Trusted News Initiative as well as its editorial teams tackling disinformation which include 大象传媒 Monitoring, 大象传媒 Trending and 大象传媒 Reality Check.

More information about the Reuters Institute’s .

Full findings and all underlying research will be published after peer review. The preliminary analysis are from the two first sets of three sets of online experiments, in a second phase of the research supported by the 大象传媒 World Service, the Reuters Institute team will take a deeper look at how broader attitudes/beliefs at individual and societal levels influence reception of/resilience to misinformation.

PS