UK-based Voice of Islam Radio Breakfast Show interviewed SMaRT-EU’s researcher Marju Himma-Kadakas on fake news and information literacy.

Some highlights from the interview:

Consumption of homogeneous and tilted or biased media encapsulates people into small information groups, so to say echo chambers in which all diverging opinions seem to be hostile.
It is healthy to diversify but also limit your information intake – have diverse media repertoires!
Journalism is not the primary source of fake news or false information.
Most effective way to protect yourself from information disorders is to simply talk to each other. Discuss the new information that you’ve read or seen. It is especially good when done intergenerationally – different generations have different looks at information, and through that, the wrong information can be easily detected.

Interviewer (I) – People across the globe are experiencing a dramatic increase in access to communication and information – how are societies and communities influenced by the media?

Marju Himma-Kadakas (MHK) – It depends on society and the community. Of course, first, we have to distinguish what is media and what is news media that we should call journalism. For more than a century, news media has shaped our informational space. The news media or journalism has an obligation to publish information that is factually backed. Fact-checking, you know. All other media – social media or alternative activist and advocacy media – do not have this obligation. And this is what has created first the flooding of information – everyone can publish anything anywhere. At the same time, when we talk about information disorder, you know fake news and disinformation, then every person who shares or posts is a potential creator of false information. For example, if a person misinterprets a scientific article and then shares their ideas on social media. Then this may be the starting point of fake news.

Therefore Journalism is kind of a drop in the sea of information. But, differently from all other media, journalism has the obligation to fact-check and correct mistakes.

And coming back to how societies and communities are influenced by the media, consumption of homogeneous and tilted or biased media encapsulates people into small information groups, so to say echo chambers in which all diverging opinions seem to be hostile. This divides communities and societies. And leads to conflicts.

I – How can we access, assess and contribute to content wisely?

MHK – I’d say that the keyword here is diversity. Diversify your personal information repertoire, your information diet, so to say. You know you are supposed to eat different food groups to keep your body functioning; the same applies to information. You should diversify but also limit your information intake.

I do not say that discard all social media or alternative media. I advise people to critically assess your media menu: do you have news media on the plate? What social media groups do you belong to? What videos do you watch? What podcasts do you listen to? Are they diverse in their nature?

The most considerable risk is that we engage ourselves in very homogeneous repertoires of information, and then we cannot compare what is accurate or factual or what is not.

Of course, there have been media literacy suggestions that people should check the source of information. But what if the source is there and it is reliable, but the way it is mediated by other counterparts is misleading? For example, studies have shown how propaganda alternative media mediates only certain types of information. For example, how everything is negative regarding certain societal groups. And by that continuous framed coverage creates an overall impression that everything regarding this group of people is negative and hostile.

So the keyword once more is consuming diverse and balanced information from multiple different sources.

I – How is misleading and false information being promoted in journalistic content, and what are the consequences of such fake news?

MHK – Most studies on fake news and hoaxes show that journalism is not the primary source of fake news or false information. It is relatively rare that entirely false information is published, or if it gets published, it is usually corrected or removed.

But as I have also published an article on how fake news and alternative facts may get published in online media, there are specific pathways to how false information may slip into the content production process.

For example, journalists get literally hundreds of press releases daily. If, for example, some activist group or any other group with misleading agenda tries to get into the news flow, they would disguise the information into a news format. And especially in online portals, this information may get published instantly because it meets all the news criteria (often breaking news criteria). It looks like news and is disguised to be accurate.

We have studied the genuine fake news that has been processed by fact-checkers such as Snopes. And what we found out is that fake news is usually written in a way that is the purest form of news genre. Even journalists do not publish news texts that are so by-the-book.

I – Do you think there needs to be greater accountability for information we receive both online and in the media, and how should it be regulated?

MHK – The best regulative institution sits between the table and the chair. So first and foremost instance for detecting and protecting from false information is the person himself. Media scholars have tried to develop all sorts of guidelines and tips for media consumers and journalists. But the most effective is when people can help themselves.

I am involved in a media literacy project called SMaRT-EU in which we tested in five countries how people could increase resilience towards fake news and disinformation. And the most effective is actually to simply talk to each other. Discuss the new information that you’ve read or seen. It is especially good when done intergenerationally – different generations have different looks at information, and through that, the wrong information can be easily detected. For example, seniors often do not perceive that advertisements may be scams or social engineering, and the best way to assess if there might be some scam hidden in the content is to ask from younger people, children or grandchildren. So people – talk to each other – old fashioned, but it works like magic.

🎧 The original interview can be found on Soundcloud.