Description du projet
Des outils pour protéger la démocratie du populisme
La montée des mouvements populistes oppose les gens à une soi-disant élite qui comprend le pouvoir judiciaire, les médias grand public, les politiciens, les experts et les universitaires. Le projet PRODEMINFO, financé par le CER, cherchera à mieux comprendre la perception de la vérité entre fausses nouvelles et théories du complot. Il identifiera l’ampleur et le sujet de la désinformation. Il combinera également l’expérimentation comportementale et cognitive contrôlée avec l’analyse des mégadonnées des réseaux sociaux, la modélisation par simulation du comportement en ligne et la modélisation textuelle de grands corpus. Les résultats donneront lieu à des interventions qui pourront être utilisées pour révéler des informations inexactes et sensibiliser aux faits.
Objectif
"Democracy is under threat. Populist movements—mainly but not exclusively on the political right—have pitted ""the people'' against a presumed ""elite'' that is variously constructed to include the judiciary, mainstream media, politicians, experts, and academics. PRODEMINFO builds on the realization that factual inaccuracy can be a political asset rather than a liability: Populist politicians may state obvious falsehoods to signal disregard for the ""establishment"" norm of honesty, thus identifying themselves as authentic champions of ""the people."" The rebranding of inaccuracy as authenticity reflects a profound shift in the underlying ontology of truth: Whereas liberal democracy is tied to a realist ontology of truth and a shared body of accepted knowledge, the populist ontology of truth is entirely constructivist and subjective. Understanding, documenting, and then addressing this ontological shift is crucial because it drastically changes the way in which one might confront misinformation—there is little point in correcting falsehoods if facts are not considered a relevant attribute of public discourse. PRODEMINFO will build tools to protect democracy in Europe by drawing a strategic arc from the threat arising from the insurgent populist ontology of truth to the development of protective solutions that can be rolled out at scale online. The objectives of PRODEMINFO are (1) to understand contemporary misinformation in Europe and how it connects to people's tacit ontology of truth; (2) to develop countermessages based on inoculation theory that are sensitive to people's different ontologies (e.g. addressing authenticity rather than accuracy of political speech); and (3) to test such countermessages at scale on social media. PRODEMINFO will pursue these objectives by combining controlled behavioural and cognitive experimentation with ""big data'' analyses of social media, simulation modelling of behaviour online, and text modelling of large corpora."
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Thème(s)
Régime de financement
ERC-ADG - Advanced GrantInstitution d’accueil
BS8 1QU Bristol
Royaume-Uni