Helpful Resources

Resilience to Online Disinformation: A Framework for Cross-National Comparative Research

Edda Humprecht, Frank Esser, Peter Van Aelst

The current crisis caused by the corona pandemic demonstrates how quickly disinformation can spread. Edda Humprecht and colleagues argue that differing media environments, including levels of political polarisation and economic incentives to produce fake news, create varying levels of susceptibility to disinformation, with the US uniquely vulnerable. Any policy responses to increase resilience to online disinformation need to take these structural differences into account.

Where ‘fake news’ flourishes: a comparison across four Western democracies

Edda Humprecht,, University of Zurich

This study aims to shed light on cross-national differences. It compares online disinformation re-published by fact checkers from four Western democracies (the US, the UK, Germany, and Austria). The findings reveal significant differences between English-speaking and German-speaking countries.

News sharing on UK social media: misinformation, disinformation, and correction

Andrew Chadwick and Cristian Vaccari, Loughborough University.

We currently know very little about the motivations that drive people to share political news on social media and how these might be contributing to changes in our online civic culture. This report is the first to address these issues in Britain on the basis of a survey of the news sharing habits on social media of a representative sample of the British public.

Measuring the reach of “fake news” and online disinformation in Europe

Richard Fletcher, Alessio Cornia, Lucas Graves, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism

This RISJ factsheet provides top-level usage statistics for the most popular sites that independent fact-checkers and other observers have identified as publishers of false news and online disinformation in two European countries: France and Italy. It focuses specifically on sites that independent fact-checkers have shown to publish demonstrably false news and information, whether for profit or for ideological/political purposes.

Media manipulation and disinformation online

Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis, Data and Society Research Institute

This in-depth report by Data and Society delves into internet subcultures and investigate how they leverage both the techniques of participatory culture and the affordances of social media to spread their various beliefs, presenting a helpful outline of who is involved, their motivations, and where they operate online.