About this Research Topic
Online disinformation poses a grave challenge to modern democracies (Shao et al., 2018; Vázquez-Herrero et al., 2019): it damages institutional trust and, consequently, the quality of democracy itself. Recent years have witnessed a growing social, governmental, and academic concern over fake news and their impact on the shaping of public opinion. Scholarship has moved from the study of political knowledge to the analysis of disinformation (Anderson, 2021) and the theorizing of information verification strategies. An increasing number of local and regional European media have also developed fact-checking and media literacy projects to fight disinformation within their communities (Rúas-Araújo et al., 2022).
Extant academic literature has explored the influence of disinformation in the media landscape, including its effects on the audience, in countries such as Italy (Giglietto et al., 2020), Spain (Salaverría et al., 2020), Germany (Zimmermann & Kohring, 2020), and the United States (Bradshaw et al., 2020) extensively. At the same time, institutional responses to disinformation, especially at local and regional levels, have received very little attention.
This Research Topic aims to fill this gap by furthering our understanding of how public institutions manage disinformation. Scholars and practitioners are invited to explore new approaches to disinformation within different media systems and political cultures, analyzing the role that citizens, mass media, fact-checkers, political actors, and digital platforms play in the fight against the phenomenon.
Specific topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• public measures against disinformation, including the adoption of innovative tools such as AI
• the identification of counteractive strategies within a comparative, cross-territory perspective
• agreements between institutions (whether European, national, regional, or local) and digital platforms to avoid the spread of fake news
• the role of fact-checkers in raising awareness about disinformation
• citizens’ reactions to the strategies implemented by institutions in the fight against misinformation, and how citizens’ feedback regarding such strategies is taken into account by the same institutions
• the relationship between citizen and institutional agendas concerning disinformation, and the extent to which such agendas interrelate.
Please note that this Research Topic accepts manuscripts submitted via Frontiers in Communication only.
Extant academic literature has explored the influence of disinformation in the media landscape, including its effects on the audience, in countries such as Italy (Giglietto et al., 2020), Spain (Salaverría et al., 2020), Germany (Zimmermann & Kohring, 2020), and the United States (Bradshaw et al., 2020) extensively. At the same time, institutional responses to disinformation, especially at local and regional levels, have received very little attention.
This Research Topic aims to fill this gap by furthering our understanding of how public institutions manage disinformation. Scholars and practitioners are invited to explore new approaches to disinformation within different media systems and political cultures, analyzing the role that citizens, mass media, fact-checkers, political actors, and digital platforms play in the fight against the phenomenon.
Specific topics include, but are not limited to, the following:
• public measures against disinformation, including the adoption of innovative tools such as AI
• the identification of counteractive strategies within a comparative, cross-territory perspective
• agreements between institutions (whether European, national, regional, or local) and digital platforms to avoid the spread of fake news
• the role of fact-checkers in raising awareness about disinformation
• citizens’ reactions to the strategies implemented by institutions in the fight against misinformation, and how citizens’ feedback regarding such strategies is taken into account by the same institutions
• the relationship between citizen and institutional agendas concerning disinformation, and the extent to which such agendas interrelate.
Please note that this Research Topic accepts manuscripts submitted via Frontiers in Communication only.
Keywords: Disinformation, comparative studies, media systems, fact-checking, local media, regional media
Important Note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.
