This is an automatic English translation of the Dutch original.
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How do you research disinformation spread through podcasts, TikTok and games? Post-X Society would also like to know, because the answer turns out not to be easy to find. Esther Hammelburg is coming to figure it out with us.
Disinformation: you read about it more and more. About texts that are well written, but in which the truth has been deliberately distorted. About video footage that looks just real, but is fake. And about familiar voices, not actually spoken by the familiar people they belong to. It turns out to be very hard to properly research how big this problem is.
Less well known, moreover, is how much disinformation is spread through livestreams, podcasts, short-form (and often temporary) videos, and in gaming environments.
Disinformation in such dynamic content, so not fixed texts on websites or internet forums, is what Post-X Society calls dynamic disinformation. And Post-X Society has become a partner in a research team investigating this problem.
Podcasts full of conspiracies
Because it is a problem, says Esther Hammelburg, senior lecturer in Communication and Creative Business at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (HvA). ‘Written text is taking up an ever smaller share of people’s media diet. We get a lot of our information from TikTok videos, Instagram Stories and podcasts. So that’s where a lot of disinformation comes from too.
‘Pointer showed that again this month in their publication about podcasts full of conspiracies. Sometimes literally in the spoken text, but often also through a clever combination of image and sound. Written text is easy for researchers to label, but dynamic disinformation like in a TikTok video? That’s hard.’
Over the next two months, Hammelburg will carry out a quick scan at Post-X Society of what is already known about dynamic disinformation. In doing so, she also hopes to find good research methods, and can develop new methods where the existing ones fall short.
In this she works together with Pieter van Boheemen, who develops tools for automated analysis, for example to convert audio into text. ‘I hope to meet more people who are looking in the same direction as we are.’
Blending of media and the physical world
Hammelburg is specifically interested in what she calls the hybridisation of our lifeworld: the increasing blending of media and the physical world in everyday experiences. In doing so, Hammelburg always looks at what this means for people and society. That is why she fits well with the Post-X Society team.
She is being seconded from the HvA, where she can in turn share her knowledge with colleagues and students. ‘For future media makers it is important that they can recognise disinformation and its mechanisms of spread. We want to train media and communication professionals who can make a valuable contribution to our society. Who make and share reliable content. So they need to know well what is happening in that media field.’
It won’t stop at a quick scan
On the basis of the quick scan, a research design will be drawn up for a study into the interplay between dynamic content and disinformation. The quick scan provides the topics, questions and suggestions for research methods for this.
Other partners in this research project are the University of Amsterdam and Wageningen University & Research. The project is funded by the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations.