11 November 2020: A new report from researchers at the University of Canberra’s News & Media Research Centre (N&MRC) highlights the need for a coordinated approach to digital literacy programs in Australia and for better “troll-identifying” tools, while social media companies must play their part by improving efforts to monitor and remove user accounts which repeatedly spread baseless conspiracy theories.
The research report, by Dr Mathieu O’Neil and Dr Michael Jensen from the N&MRC, analyses news consumption data to reveal high levels of concern about misinformation among news consumers. “This is particularly acute given the declining trust in news,” Dr O’Neil said.
The report re-analysed data collected for this year’s Digital News Report: Australia which provides an evidence-base for understanding how Australians consume news and perceive misinformation.
“Australians are rightly concerned about the role social media platforms, particularly Facebook, play in spreading misinformation,” Dr O’Neil said. “In the context of the current pandemic, enabling the spread of health misinformation is an egregious activity”.
The report also brings together cutting-edge perspectives about the role of misinformation in Australian media and politics, including research analysing Twitter “troll” accounts controlled by the Russian Internet Research Agency (IRA) during the 2016 Australian election.
“We were very surprised at the level of sophistication of Russian IRA operations in 2016. While it’s not clear to what extent they swayed Australians’ opinions, this should not detract from the fact that these attempts occurred and are still occurring.”
Taking a networked approach to the research process, UC researchers Dr O’Neil and Dr Jensen worked in partnership with the ANU’s Virtual Observatory for the Study of Online Networks, one of the world’s leading e-social science hubs. The report also includes expert commentary from researchers Axel Bruns and Tim Graham from QUT.
The final perspective comes from journalists themselves. An interview with Kelsie Iorio (ABC Digital) demonstrates the pressures on journalists when confronted with misled audiences. Commentary from Chris Zappone (The Age) argues news is now but a membrane among many other layers of networked information generated by social media, entertainment, business and communities.
Dr O’Neil said his passion for researching misinformation dates back to his early interest in Stalinist/Maoist efforts to rewrite history by falsifying images, an interest he has incorporated into his teaching in the School of Communication and Arts at UC. Examples of falsified images are included in the report.
According to Dr O’Neil, propaganda was generally not seen as a concern until 2016, when the election of Donald Trump in the USA and the UK Brexit campaign brought into sharp relief the capacity for social media to facilitate the dissemination of misleading information. In 2020, Covid-19 meant people stayed at home, leading to an exponential increase in the spread of anti-scientific conspiracies. Dr O’Neil calls this a form of “self-propaganda, as people can share and embellish conspiratorial beliefs”.
“My PhD was on underground media in the US, so I have long been attuned to the critique that mainstream media represents a form of (corporate) propaganda. This belief is now widespread amongst conspiracy believers: understanding this critical tradition represents the basis for establishing a dialogue with conspiracy believers,” he said.
The full report can be found here.