This volume brings explores the evolving landscape of misinformation, disinformation, fake news and fact-checking in the media and the public domain. It highlights the prominence misinformation poses to society tracing its relationship with weakening institutions and assaults on freedom of the press and academic freedom.
Organized into four thematic dimensions—fact-checking institutions, practices, publics, and algorithms, the book offers a comprehensive overview of the field’s development. The concluding chapter reflects on recent disruptions, including the current shift from professional fact-checkers toward community-based moderation, raising urgent questions about platform governance. It outlines a forward-looking agenda focused on three key actors—platform companies, professional fact-checkers, and publics.
This collection brings together essays and research published in Digital Journalism with a new introductory and concluding chapter. It is essential reading for scholars, practitioners, and policymakers navigating the complex intersections of fact-checking and misinformation in the digital age.
Table of Contents:
Research into Fact-checking: Introducing the State of the Art in the Field 1. Considering Interinstitutional Visibilities in Combating Misinformation 2. Digital Infrastructures of COVID-19 Misinformation: A New Conceptual and Analytical Perspective on Fact-Checking 3. Facing Fakes: Understanding Tech Platforms’ Responses to Online Falsehoods 4. The Watchdog Role of Fact-Checkers in Different Media Systems 5. Debunking False Information: Investigating Journalists’ Fact-Checking Skills 6. From Public Reason to Public Health: Professional Implications of the “Debunking Turn” in the Global Fact-Checking Field 7. The Logics of Fact-Checking Website Operations 8. Epistemology of Fact Checking: An Examination of Practices and Beliefs of Fact Checkers Around the World 9. Show Me the Facts: Newsroom-Affiliated and Independent Fact-Checkers’ Transparency Acts 10. Cutting through the Hype: Understanding the Implications of Deepfakes for the Fact-Checking Actor-Network 11. The Corrective Effect of Fact-Checking and Hostile Media Perceptions: A Three-Way Interaction Model between Social Media News Usage and Political Misperceptions 12. Divides in News Verification: Antecedents and Political Outcomes of News Verification by Age 13. Factbait: Emotionality of Fact-Checking Tweets and Users’ Engagement during the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election and the COVID-19 Pandemic 14. The Alternative Truth Kept Hidden From Us: The Effects of Multimodal Disinformation Disseminated by Ordinary Citizens and Alternative Hyper-Partisan Media: Evidence From the US and India 15. Dominant Disciplinary and Thematic Approaches to Automated Fact-Checking: A Scoping Review and Reflection 16. A Case of Claims and Facts: Automated Fact-Checking the Future of Journalism’s Authority 17. AI as an Apolitical Referee: Using Alternative Sources to Decrease Partisan Biases in the Processing of Fact-Checking Messages 18. Do You Speak Disinformation? Computational Detection of Deceptive News-Like Content Using Linguistic and Stylistic Features 19. Advancing a research agenda amid misinformation: platform companies, professional fact-checkers, and publics
About the Author :
Oscar Westlund is Professor at Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway, where he co-leads the OsloMet Digital Journalism Research Group. He holds a secondary appointment at University of Gothenburg and is the Editor-in-Chief of Digital Journalism. He specializes in digital journalism, fact-checking, platforms, epistemology, media management, news consumption, and, mobile media.
