Disinformation
Promoting trust in science and countering misinformation: a task for all
Misinformation is a new pandemic, one for which the only cure is knowledge. Informed audiences, media-savvy scientists, and high-quality journalism are key to counter misinformation. These are the main takeaways from the debate on 'Promoting trust in science to counter misinformation', the third event of a series called Science-Media Days, which took place on 20 ...
ESMH participates in the conference on the future of science communcation in Europe
How to communicate scientific evidence in the digital era? How to maintain an open dialogue with citizens and address disinformation and misinformation? Could science communication be more structured and institutionalised at European level? These were the main issues discussed at the second Future of Science Communication Conference (FSCC 2.0) on 26 April in Brussels. Academics, ...
How to effectively communicate uncertainty? Engaging with people’s concern about complex scientific topics
The world's oldest independent scientific academy, the Royal Society, dedicated to promoting excellence in science, has published a new report on the challenge of scientific misinformation: how can we foster a healthier online information environment? We spoke with chair of the report Frank Kelly, Emeritus Professor of the Mathematics of Systems at the University of ...
Ciara Greene: “How false news and memories change readers’ behaviour”
Infodemic exclusive interview: Cognitive psychologist Ciara Greene studies attention and memory at University College Dublin. Greene recently published a study on how pandemic-related false news changes people’s behaviour. In this interview, she talks about their psychological experiments to demonstrate our susceptibility to false news and how misinformation creates false memories. What prompted you to conduct ...
European scientists unite against disinformation: “It can have severe consequences for human health and our economies”
A group of European scientists has made it their mission to raise awareness about disinformation, its mechanisms and its dangers. They belong to ALLEA, the European Federation of Academies of Sciences and Humanities. This organisation brings researchers from all over Europe together; in various working groups and projects they explore topics of high societal relevance ...
Provenance: ‘Stop and think’ before sharing online content
Challenging dis- information in the news requires a multi faceted, multi disciplinary and multi media approach. The EU funded project ‘Provenance’ focuses on helping people evaluate online content, equipping them with media literacy skills and discouraging the sharing of unreliable information. Could interventions like this change the dynamics of social sharing by encouraging engagement with high-quality content?
Joana Gonçalves de Sá: “Mitigate the misinformation pandemic by ‘vaccinating’ the susceptible individuals first.”
Joana Gonçalves de Sá is an Invited Associate Professor at the Physics Department of Instituto Superior Técnico, Universidade de Lisboa, and was the recipient of an ERC Starting Grant to study human behaviour using the online spread of ’fake news’ as a model system. Disinformation and misinformation are not a new problem, so why did ...
Michael Butter: “Education can help against conspiracy theories”
Michael Butter is Professor of American Studies at the University of Tübingen. He is the author of The Nature of Conspiracy Theories (Polity, 2020) and Principal Investigator of the ERC-funded project Populism and Conspiracy Theory. This year you co-edited the Routledge Handbook of Conspiracy Theories along with Peter Knight. Can you talk about some of ...
