Chilean researchers win funding to study disinformation flow: IMFD researchers are awarded funds to study the phenomenon
October 2021. The disinformation and fake news are currently a relevant problem for all societies relevant problem for all societies in the world.. In Chile, says Marcelo Mendoza, academic at the Universidad Técnica Federico Santa María and IMFD researcher, "we believe that disinformation has permeated our society but we need to measure its impact. Nor have we measured the effect of content verification agencies".
In this context, the researcher is developing the "National study on disinformation in social networks and its effect on pluralism and the media agenda", which received a grant from the ANID Pluralism Fund.which received an allocation from the ANID Pluralism Fund. The objective of this fund is to to finance academic studies to detect, evaluate, promote or consolidate pluralism in the national information system.
Also participating in the study are Sebastián Valenzuela, academic from the Communications Faculty of the Catholic University of Chile and IMFD researcher, Fabián Padilla from Fastcheck.cl, Valeria Aldana from the University of the Americas, Enrique Núñez from the Catholic University of Chile and Fastcheck.cl and Javiera Gómez, from the Transparency Council. This team will seek to characterize the phenomenon of disinformation and its effects on the media agenda, in addition to "identifying the route of disinformation in Chile, that is, who promotes it, what type of content they disseminate, who disseminates it, who it affects and who benefits from it", highlights Mendoza.
Through analysis, the researchers will identify patterns that will help the media as well as specialized initiatives to verify and teach citizens to know and make visible the magnitude of the phenomenon, which at the same time serves to limit its propagation. They also seek to create a national report whose methodology can be reproduced over the years in order to, in the long term, visualize trends and observe significant changes that contribute to Chilean media pluralism.