Defining Misinformation and Disinformation

Let’s talk about information—the spaces where we get our news and what we know. In the past, we got our information from the same essential fountains of information: TV nightly news and print newspapers. There was a certain level of shared space and reality that came from less audience fragmentation and less media convergence.

Media convergence combines different media technologies, content, and communication to make them more interconnected. It's a result of media digitization and the popularity of the Internet. We also had a news cycle that was more of a 12-hour or 24-hour phenomenon. We watched the evening news and then perhaps the morning news. We got a morning newspaper to catch up on everything we needed to know. What we call “legacy” media has primarily changed, and the landscape for delivering our new cycle is constant and chaotic. It has changed with both the Internet and varieties of social media.

Barb McQuade, a law professor at the University of Michigan, has written a book about disinformation, propaganda, and the collective threat to Democracy titled An Attack from Within. Her book focuses on the fact that the primary way that authoritarian leaders gain power is through disinformation. If you are interested in disinformation and authoritarianism, I highly recommend it. So, let’s start by defining some basic terms and then talk about the effects that they can have on the average media consumer.

First, according to McQuade, disinformation is “the deliberate use of lies to manipulate people, whether to extract profit or to advance a political agenda.” Misinformation is the spreading of this disinformation unknowingly into the public discourse and repeating over and over again the lies that they believe to be true. In my last post, I mentioned how these are used to construct people’s reality, so often, they take the disinformation and spread it as what they truly believe.

I cannot tell you how many times I have heard people steeped in the right-wing information ecosphere talk about cat litter boxes in classrooms. Even respected politicians were repeating this lie. These folks truly believed this narrative. Sadly, there are buckets with cat litter in them because they are lockdown kits - in case students get stuck in classrooms during active shooter situations and need a place to go (yes, many teachers have experienced this).

The goal of someone disinforming the public typically is to inflame our passions and to demonize or dehumanize other folks using a rhetorical fallacy of the “either-or.” What they do is set up a binary choice. Either you are good, OR you are evil. Either you are with us, OR you are against us, and using these dehumanizing falsehoods of “othering” to put us at odds with one another. McQuade says that the main thing that seems to matter to most people is not whether the statement or ideas are true but align with their chosen reality or worldview.

Science Magazine’s recent article, A Field’s Dilemmas, discusses misinformation and the biggest challenges facing a rapidly growing field of study. This article explains that there isn’t a consensus on what misinformation consists of. A committee convened by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, currently working on a report on misinformation in science, adopted an early working definition: information that counters the consensus in science.

However, this definition may be too narrow and overlooks the bigger picture of disinformation, which is spread deliberately to mislead others. Disinformation campaigns often work by selectively amplifying certain pieces of news, which can contain accurate elements, but using them in misleading ways or without context. Usually, disinformation is not just a simple piece of content. It’s a strategy. What’s more, when attempting to study misinformation, a great deal of information is consumed in the social media realm, and a few people within social media own analytics and exist within massive conglomerates such as Meta and X.

Speaking of Elon Musk’s social media platform X, a research study was recently released post-election in which (big surprise) the algorithms used on X amplified right-wing messages and suppressed left-wing messages. And yes, this isn’t a big surprise given that Elon Musk was a significant funder of the Trump campaign and is currently going to be a fixture within the Trump Administration. This is reminiscent of the age-old media theory of agenda-setting.

The agenda-setting theory states that the mainstream media sets the agenda of public discourse. It does this not so much by telling people what to think but rather what to think about. These agendas are set by those in power who own the media companies. Algorithmic adaptation of social media feeds seems to take this theory to a new level. Thus, the algorithms can be programmed to feed us news and memes according to our preferences, reinforcing our perceptions of reality. This fuels our already human desire for confirmation bias.

Confirmation Bias is the tendency to look for information that supports, rather than rejects, one’s preconceptions. It typically involves interpreting evidence to confirm existing beliefs while rejecting or ignoring any conflicting data. We are fed what confirms our biases within the algorithms we create by liking and commenting on certain types of information. And often, outrage and anger get the most clicks on social media. All of these factors play a role in the effectiveness of a disinformation campaign. People are predisposed to use their confirmation biases, and we do so to avoid the uncomfortableness of change and the discomfort of cognitive dissonance.

Cognitive dissonance is the mental discomfort that results from holding two conflicting beliefs, values, or attitudes. People tend to seek consistency in their attitudes and perceptions, so this conflict causes unpleasant feelings of unease or discomfort. To recap, we crave information that conforms to our existing worldviews, and we seek consistency because we do not like the mental discomfort of cognitive dissonance. This leaves us quite susceptible to disinformation campaigns as human beings who consume social media as much as we currently do.

As a result, misinformation poses a more significant threat to Democracy than many realize. I began to realize this as I encountered Trump supporters who would not depart from their inherently false beliefs, even when they were confronted with verifiable evidence that said otherwise. Additionally, as I showed you in my previous post, it played an enormous role in the overall ballot choices for candidates.

Nature magazine's article "Misinformation Poses a Bigger Threat to Democracy than You Might Think" predicted much of what happened in the 2024 election. It discusses the implications of dis/misinformation and how we can work to forge a more informed citizenship. The authors argue vigorously for the importance of evidence-based reasoning and fact-based information. This is also true for the importance of evidence-based gathering through journalism and legal proceedings. When these forums and the credibility of experts are challenged, society starts to break down, reality begins to break down, and Democracy starts to break down.

How do we start to combat disinformation? I believe in helping people become critical consumers and thinkers through information literacy programs. The first step to understanding is to educate yourself about the devices that can be used in our daily lives to mislead us. I found a really helpful guide that helps explain ways to prebunk information and be on the lookout for misleading information in the online sphere, entitled Countering Online Manipulation.

The first step towards protecting yourself and others from online manipulation is knowing what to look for. With Moonshot and local partners, Google and Jigsaw are running prebunking videos in the European Union to address some of the most prevalent tactics used to manipulate people online. Don’t let yourself be manipulated online. While these are being run in the EU, they can be applied to what is happening here in the United States. However, we likely won’t have any such programs from the Trump administration anytime soon.

In upcoming articles, I will discuss the power of Fox News due to carriage fees and how they tend to drive a narrative in the right-wing ecosystem. Additionally, most folks don’t know what pink slime (no, it isn’t what hot dogs are made from, but it is as bad for you) is and how pernicious it can be by invading some of the sources we think we can trust. Some pink slime is even disguised as newspapers put in your mailbox, which are simple propaganda.

I will open up comments in case y’all have something you want to hear about or so that you can tell me what you think.