Heb je wel eens een nieuwsbericht gelezen dat achteraf niet waar bleek te zijn? Niet vreemd, want fake news ofwel nepnieuws is soms bijna niet te onderscheiden van echt nieuws. En je ziet het steeds vaker op je tijdlijn voorbijkomen, want het neemt een steeds grotere plek in op sociale media. Wat is …

Recently, the international security situation has changed significantly. Mutual trust between states has declined sharply. Policy makers of states and international organisations often no longer know where they stand. In 2016, the Oxford Dictionary proclaimed ‘post truth’ the word of the year.1 In …

Na een flinke schare mediawetenschappers, zijn de laatste tijd ook overheden en techreuzen doordrongen van het risico van hoaxes en deep fakes voor democratie en verdienmodellen. In de afgelopen maanden, waarin het nieuws beheerst werd door Covid-19 en de Amerikaanse verkiezingen, werd duidelijk hoe …

The purpose of this literature study is to obtain information about educational approaches to teaching 11 to 12 years old children focusing on how to distinguish between real news and fake news. With this purpose we studied 16 academic papers about learning activities to make primary school children …

Disinformation and so-called fake news are contemporary phenomena with rich histories. Disinformation, or the willful introduction of false information for the purposes of causing harm, recalls infamous foreign interference operations in national media systems. Outcries over fake news, or dubious stories …

De coronacrisis heeft de zwakke plekken in onze informatievoorziening pijnlijk blootgelegd: tijdens de crisis nam de verspreiding van nepnieuws enorm toe, en complottheorieën beleven hoogtij dagen. Hoe zorgen we als samenleving voor goed geïnformeerde burgers en hoe kunnen informatieprofessionals daarin …

A Boolean function can only have either of two values (on, or off, 1, or 0). However, most things that are of value to us humans cannot be captured in the Boolean functions. With a simplification of our complex reality to True and False, we will inevitably destroy our understanding of the world in the …

Polarizing may be a logical consequence, but it’s certainly not helpful. Of course I understand that everyone wants to regain control of the situation. However, sacrificing transmissions towers, or even human scapegoats to satisfy our need to understand, crosses every line. But it is easy to understand …

‘The network is everlasting’ wrote Robert Filliou and George Brecht in 1967, a statement that, at first glance, still seems to be true of today’s world. Yet there are also signs that the omnipresence of networks is evolving into another reality. In recent times, the limits of networks rather than their …

The research examines junk news, followers of problematic sources as well as artificial amplification on Instagram during the 2019 Dutch provincial and European parliamentary elections. First, this study looks at the circulation of junk content in high-engagement political spaces on Instagram. Second, …