Deciphering the path of disinformation in Chile: IMFD researchers awarded funding to study phenomenon
October 2021. Disinformation misinformation and fake news are currently a significant problem for all societies around the world. In Chile, says Marcelo Mendoza, an academic at the Federico Santa María Technical University and IMFD researcher, "we believe that misinformation has permeated our society, but we need to gauge its impact. Nor have we measured the effect that content verification agencies have."
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 funding from the ANID Pluralism Fund. The purpose of this fund is to fund academic studies that enable the detection, evaluation, promotion, or consolidation of pluralism in the national information system.
The study also includes Sebastián Valenzuela, professor at the Faculty of Communications at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and IMFD researcher; Fabián Padilla from Fastcheck.cl; Valeria Aldana from the University of the Americas; Enrique Núñez from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile and Fastcheck.cl; and Javiera Gómez from the Council for Transparency. This team will seek to characterize the phenomenon of disinformation and its effects on the media agenda, as well as "identify the route of disinformation in Chile, that is, who promotes it, what type of content they disseminate, who spreads it, who it affects, and who benefits from it,"Mendoza points out.
Through analysis, researchers will identify patterns that will serve the media as well as specialized verification initiatives and teach citizens to recognize and highlight the magnitude of the phenomenon, which at the same time serves to limit its spread. They also seek to create a national report whose methodology can be reproduced over the years in order to visualize trends and observe significant changes that contribute to Chilean media pluralism in the long term .