“I share ’cause I care”: social media users' folk theories of the interplay between dis-/misinformation and democracy
(2022) 9th European Communication Conference (ECREA) — Location: Aarhus (19.October.2022)
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- Abstract
- The amount of published research on mis-/disinformation in connection with social media in recent years shows the importance of this research topic. So far, existing research has mostly focused on the definition(s) of mis-/disinformation in relation to “fake news”, on the nature and the extent of the issue, as well as on the cognitive and content-related factors that shape the audiences’ interactions with "fake news" (Tandoc, 2019). This paper will contribute to the audience perspective on mis-/disinformation (Wagner & Boczkowksi, 2019) by researching how people make sense of the relationships between mis-/disinformation and democracy, being understood as including a broad range of participatory practices — not just institutional politics. We argue that in order to better understand the "impact" of mis-/disinformation on democracy, we also need to take into consideration how people imagine and/or problematise democracy (Papacharissi, 2021) and how they relate these to their understandings of mis-/disinformation. One way to tackle this issue is the concept of “folk theory”, which is increasingly used in media studies (Nielsen, 2016). Understood as generalised views of the world produced by people, folk theories allow us to approach what people think influences their day to day democratic practices - and what influences they think they have in/on democracy. In this research, we ask the following research question: how do social media users imagine and problematize the interplay between democratic life and mis-/disinformation ? Methodologically, we draw from a discourse analysis of 15 semi-directive interviews and a series of online observations on social media with Belgians across the political and ideological spectrum who engage regularly, and in various ways, with demonstrably false information on social media, using examples of false information and fact-checks in order to foster the conversation with the informants. Results show that individuals develop complex and somewhat contradictory theories of (1) what count as valuable news and how the problem of mis-/disinformation should be defined, (2) the interplay between politicians, legacy news media and social media platforms, (3) the democratic challenges and opportunities of mis-/disinformation, and (4) the impact of mis-/disinformation on citizenship. Altogether, this research aims to contribute to the research on mis-/disinformation by putting the focus on how those who share, comment, endorse or problematize “fake news” conceptualise the complex media and political environment they live in. Ultimately, this research disturbingly challenges such fundamental notions as "information" and "democracy" and calls into question how, as academics, we can have an impact in the fight against mis-/disinformation.
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Citations
Wiard, V., Patriarche, G., Dufrasne, M., & Rasquinet, O. (2022). “I share ’cause I care”: social media users’ folk theories of the interplay between dis-/misinformation and democracy. 9th European Communication Conference (ECREA), Aarhus. https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/243009