Description du projet
Comment éviter de se faire piéger par les fake news
La plupart des choses que vous lisez en ligne sont des fake news — des canulars destinés désinformer les lecteurs, à influencer leur opinion sur une question ou à favoriser un programme politique. Il est plus probable que les fake news soient partagées et repartagées à travers le web, atteignant des millions de personnes en peu de temps. C’est pourquoi il est difficile de mener des actions de rectification de la désinformation — les personnes croient facilement ce qu’elles lisent à plusieurs reprises. Le projet MISTRUST, financé par l’UE, analysera ce mécanisme de rectification. Il propose des méthodes pour convaincre les personnes de remettre en question les fake news en apportant des informations sur l’absence de fiabilité de la source. Les résultats du projet aideront à formuler des politiques sur des moyens efficaces de contrer ces fake news.
Objectif
Every day a vast amount of misinformation and Fake News are repeated and infinitely shared, reaching millions of people in a short time. The large-scale dissemination of misinformation is one of the major challenges that current societies face, with long-lasting costs to individuals and governments. European Commission’s recent efforts in seeking advice from experts regarding measures to counteract disinformation attest to the urgency of addressing this issue.
The fact that people tend to believe in information they repeatedly encounter and to reject claims that contradict what they heard before makes misinformation-correction very difficult. Since most correction strategies entail both a repetition of the false claims and their contradiction, they ironically end up strengthening the validity of the misinformation they attempt to correct. It is thus of the utmost importance to examine the mechanisms that may contribute to the development of effective misinformation-correction actions.
This proposal contributes to that goal, addressing a novel variable - source (un)trustworthiness - with the potential to influence the effects of repetition and contradiction on perceived information validity. It is hypothesized that providing information about the untrustworthiness of the source of previous false claims will prompt individuals to scrutinize and analyze information more deeply, counteracting the effects of repetition and contradiction (which rely on superficial information processing). This research program will both advance the knowledge in the field and inform future policies to deal with the increasing amount of misinformation that is spread to the public.
The researcher conducting the project has the relevant expertise on both the specific field of research and the appropriate experimental methodologies. Additionally, the Host offers a high-quality research and training environment, and the necessary infrastructure for the successful implementation of the project.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinateur
1649 026 Lisboa
Portugal