Campus
Seminar für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
C18 – Lehrgebäude 4
Alfred-Weber-Platz 4
99089 Erfurt
Universität Erfurt
Seminar für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt
Dienstag: 12h-14h (bitte voranmelden per E-Mail)
Campus
Seminar für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
C18 – Lehrgebäude 4
Alfred-Weber-Platz 4
99089 Erfurt
Universität Erfurt
Seminar für Medien- und Kommunikationswissenschaft
Postfach 90 02 21
99105 Erfurt
Co-Organisation der Vorkonferenz im Rahmen der 73rd annual ICA: The Global Fact-Checking Movement: Regional, Comparative, Organizational, and Institutional Perspectives, Toronto, Canada, 25.05.23 (mit Prof. Dr. Lucas Graves and Dr. Laurens Lauer). Chairs: Laurens Lauer, U Duisburg-Essen; Lucas Graves, UW-Wisconsin; Regina Cazzamatta, U Erfurt.
Disinformation Environments and the Emergence of Fact-Checking Organisations in Europe and Latin America
Gefördert durch die Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG)/ eigene Stelle von August 2022 bis Juli 2025.
Fact-Checking organisations provide the most relevant non-governmental reactions to the increasing amount of disinformation around the globe and they have become one of the most popular innovations to tackle this problem (Saurwein & Spencer-Smith, 2020). For democracy to prosper, a society must have the instruments to remedy political misperceptions among its citizens, and fact-checking is one of them (Garrett et al. 2013). Fact-checkers’ primary function is not only to debunk online alternative facts but also to verify claims made by political actors (Saurwein & Spencer-Smith, 2020). Fact-checking units are flourishing among the websites of several media sectors: global news agencies (AFP and Reuters Fact Check, DPA-Faktencheck or Efe Verifica), broadcasting (ARD-Faktenfinder or BBC Reality Check), newspapers (Fact Checks -The New York Times) and even independent NGO-based organisations (Correctiv, Full Fact or Maldita). This tendency has indeed spread around the world, and nowadays, 236 fact-checking websites are active in the five continents (Duke Reporters’ Lab, 2020).
Although online disinformation is a global development, fact-checkers are formed by national environments (Graves & Cherubini, 2016). They are intertwined with the media systems they operate in. Hence, to fully comprehend this phenomenon, it is crucial to conduct a comparative analysis of its mechanisms and to investigate how fact-checkers debunk disinformation. Oriented by micro, meso and macro structures, this project – funded by the DFG from August 2022 – focuses on how disparities in the media and political systems impact not only on the disinformation landscape but also on the work of fact-checkers (debunking articles, performance, professional practices, and challenges). Thus; the main research question reads: how do online disinformation and the programme of fact-checking organisations vary according to different media systems in Europe and Latin America? The results of the US-presidential election and the UK Brexit referendum in 2016 demonstrated the consequences of “[a] post-truth political culture of public debate” (Hafez, 2017, p. 6) and of a public sphere dominated by irrational discussions (Hafez, 2019). Similar developments were also observed in Latin America, a region marked by weak penetration of public service broadcasting and high use of social media as a source of news (Reuters Institute, 2020). The election of the far-right populist candidate Jair Bolsonaro 2018 (Cazzamatta, 2020f; Saucedo Añez & Cazzamatta, 2020) equally prompted concerns about the effects of disinformation in the region. The Brazilian police investigated a ‘fake news’ network, the so-called digital militia, that might be linked to the president’s son.
Despite a few exploratory studies on the fact-checking phenomenon in Europe and despite the fact that an abundant amount in the US has already been published, there is a lack of comparison integrating non-Western nations, such as the Latin American new democracies. Euro-American comparisons are important, but they exclude a large portion of the world (Badr et al., 2020). Thus, this project is based on a “most different system design” (Rössler, 2011), in the sense that this comprises eight countries amidst Europe and Latin America with different forms of political systems and democratic levels. The research combines a quantitative content analysis of 4,400 debunking articles with 22 qualitative expert interviews. In addition, the project will provide a new theoretical approach to the analysis of fact-checking units grounded on concepts of the public sphere, discourse and system theory. Within Europe, Germany, the UK, Spain and Portugal were incorporated when considering the three types of media systems (Hallin & Mancini, 2004). In Latin America, Uruguay, Argentina, Brazil and Venezuela were selected due to their contrasting media and political indicators.
21 March 2025: “United for Truth: Building a Cross-Border European Information Network Through Hyperlink Connections Among Fact-Checking Organizations.” 70. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), Berlin, Germany.
21 March 2025 (with Augusto Santos): “Policy Responses to Online Disinformation: A Cross-National Analysis of State-Established Content Moderation Regulations.” 70. Jahrestagung der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Publizistik- und Kommunikationswissenschaft (DGPuK), Berlin, Germany.
15 November 2024: “Alternative Right-Wing Outlets in Europe and Latin America and Their Role in Disrupting the Public Sphere.” The International and Intercultural Division of the German Communication Association (DGPuK), Salzburg, Austria.
25 September 2024: “Decoding Correction Strategies: How Fact-Checkers Uncover Falsehoods Across Countries.” Journalism Studies Section, European Communication Conference (ECREA), Ljubljana, Slovenia.
25 September 2024 (with Augusto Santos): “Unveiling Disinformation: Mapping Attacks on Brazil’s Electoral System and the Response of the Superior Electoral Court (2018-2023).” Communication and Democracy Section, European Communication Conference (ECREA), Ljubljana, Slovenia.
3 July 2024: “Transnational Trends in Misinformation: A Comparative Analysis Across Eight Countries.” Panel: “Landscape of International Politics, Media, and News International,” International Communication Section, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Christchurch, New Zealand.
3 July 2024 (with Dr. Aynur Sarisakaloglu): “Unveiling the Challenges and Future Directions of AI-Supported Fact-Checking in Journalism Across Selected Countries: Navigating Monitoring and Verification Processes.” Panel: “Journalism in the Digital Age II,” Journalism Research & Education Section, International Association for Media and Communication Research (IAMCR), Christchurch, New Zealand.
29 June 2024: “Global Misinformation Trends: Patterns of Topics, Deception Strategies, Targets, and Scope of Falsehoods Across Eight Countries.” Panel: “Connections, Discourses, and Visibilities,” Global Communication and Social Change Division, 74th Annual Conference of the International Communication Association (ICA), Gold Coast, Australia.
14 March 2024: “Fact-Checking for a Better Life? How Fact-Checkers Are Redefining Notions of Objectivity.” Panel: “Production and Quality of Journalistic Content,” German Society for Journalism and Communication Studies Conference (DGPuK 2024), University of Erfurt.
27 February 2024: “Global Perspectives of Disinformation and Fact-Checking Editorial Decisions in Eight Countries.” Panel: “Characterising Disinformation: Trends, Topics, and Narratives,” European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO) Scientific Conference 2024, University of Amsterdam.
14 December 2023: Roundtable organized by the German Journalists’ Association (DJV) and Deutsche Welle regarding the role of fact-checking in journalism, particularly in the context of the Israel-Hamas conflict and the Russian War on Ukraine (online).
17 November 2023: “Fact-Checkers: How to Conceptualize These New Actors in the Public Communication Mode.” Annual Conference 2023 of the International and Intercultural Communication Division of the DGPuK in cooperation with the DFG Network Cosmopolitan Communication Studies: “Out of the Comfort Zone: Challenges of Communication Studies in the Age of New Global Realities,” Berlin, Germany.
2 November 2023: Invited panelist – “Transatlantic Dialogue Division and Polarization: A Global Phenomenon,” organized by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation, the US Consulate General Leipzig, and Willy Brandt School of Public Policy, Erfurt, Germany.
8 July 2023: “Fact-Checking Political Claims and Online Disinformation in the 2022 Brazilian Run-Off Election: An Avalanche of Anonymous Sources and Attacks on the Democratic Electoral System.” IAMCR (International Association for Media and Communication Research) Pre-Conference: “Political Discourse on Global Digital Media: Are We Heading in the Right Direction?” Lyon, France.
30 March 2023: “The Fact-Checking Movement in Europe and Latin America: A Global Reaction to Disinformation Disorder and Disrupted Public Spheres.” Keynote lecture at the Spring Conference of the Media Education Section, Leuphana Universität Lüneburg, Lüneburg, Germany.
10 March 2023: “Fact-Checkers as Gatekeepers in the Digital Public Sphere: A Comparison Between Europe and Latin America.” Technische Universität Dortmund, Erich-Brost-Institut Deutschland, Dortmund, Germany.
23 February 2023: “Disinformation Environments and the Emergence of Fact-Checking Organizations: A Theoretical Framework.” Stellenbosch University, Department of Journalism, Stellenbosch, South Africa.
7 October 2021: “The Elections in Germany, Its Internal Injunctions, and the Prospection of Scenarios for the European Union.” Lecture within the International Debates of Unesp University, Franca, Brazil.
1 September 2021: “Mediated Populism: The US Image in German Media.” Presentation at the General Conference of the European Consortium for Political Research (ECPR), Innsbruck, Austria.
7 May 2021: “Post-Bolsonaro’s Foreign Policy: Changing Brazil's Image Abroad: Political and Economic Impacts.” Presentation within the cycles of debates of PUC University, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
18 July 2017: “The Image of Latin America in the German Media.” International Association for Media and Communication Research Conference (IAMCR), Cartagena, Colombia.
15 January 2017: “Determinants of the Latin American Coverage in the German Press.” Presentation within the GIGA (Global Institute for Global and Area Studies) Doctoral Colloquium, Hamburg, Germany.
Universität Erfurt (Campus)
Nordhäuser Str. 63
99089 Erfurt