mediadev library

The Road Ahead: Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation

Samantha Bradshaw, Lisa-Maria Neudert

Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (2021), 27 pp.

"Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) bring a wide range of skill sets to the problem of digital disinformation. Some organizations focus on digital media literacy and education; others engage in advocacy and policy work. Another segment has developed expertise in fact-checking and verification. Other ... organizations have developed refined technical skills for extracting and analyzing data from social media platforms. This research yielded several clear observations about the state of CSO responses to disinformation and, in turn, suggests several recommendations for paths forward. • Prioritize Skill Diffusion and Knowledge Transfer. Civil society organizations seeking funding for counter-disinformation initiatives should emphasize the importance of skill diffusion and knowledge-transfer initiatives. The siloed nature of disinformation research points to a growing need to blend technical expertise with deep cultural and political knowledge. • CSO researchers lack sufficient access to social media data. Survey respondents identified insufficient access to data as a challenge. Sometimes data are not made available to CSOs; in other instances, data are made available in formats that are not workable for meaningful research purposes. Unequal access to the data that private companies do provide can exacerbate regional inequities, and the nature of data sharing by social media platforms can unduly shape the space for inquiry by civil society and other researchers. Funders, platforms, and other key actors should develop approaches that provide more consistent, inclusive data access to CSOs. • Duplicative programming hampers innovation. CSOs drawing on similar tools, approaches, and techniques to meet similar goals pointed to three main factors preventing more specialized, innovative initiatives: lack of coordination, lack of specific expertise, and lack of flexible funding. Community building and collaboration among relevant organizations deserve more investment, as do initiatives that partner larger, established organizations with smaller or growing ones, or pool efforts, skill sets, and expertise to encourage diverse research by design rather than by coincidence. • Relationships with tech platforms vary across regions. Surveyed CSOs often held simultaneously skeptical and positive opinions about their relationships with social media companies. Some receive preferential access to data and even funding for their work (raising concerns about independence), while others report a lack of responsiveness from company representatives. In the Global South and Eastern Europe, many CSOs expressed concern that platforms failed to meaningfully engage with them on issues of critical concern. • More flexible funding and more diverse research are both necessary. To encourage greater platform accountability across varied geographic contexts, CSOs and their funders should draw on the perspectives of specific, under-analyzed communities." (Executive summary, page 3-4) more

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Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity
Key Guidance

Daniel Arnaudo, Bret Barrowman, Julia Brothers, Lisa Reppell, Victoria Scott, Amy Studdart, Kip Wainscott, Vera Zakem

Consortium for Elections and Political Process Strengthening (CEPPS);USAID (2020), [345 pp.]

"This resource combines the collective wisdom of organizations on the front lines of combatting disinformation globally. This living project provides an outline of what’s being done to address the challenge in key areas and provides a searchable database of the organizations around the world engag ... more

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Gender, Media & ICTs: New Approaches for Research, Education & Training
Key Guidance

Lisa French, Aimée Vega Montiel, Claudia Padovani (eds.)

Paris: UNESCO (2019), 129 pp.

"Teachers can cultivate gender-sensitive graduates able to impact on the future communication environment to help make it inclusive, diverse and open. Scholars from 10 universities from across all world regions have collaborated on this project: Complutense University (Spain), Hawassa University (Et ... more

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Making the Media Work for You: A Guide for Civil Society Organisations

Lisa Essex, Brandon Oelofse

Maastricht: European Journalism Centre (2015), 103 pp.

"We provide practical, effective strategies for civil society organisations that seek to raise and maintain their visibility and impact both in the real and virtual worlds. The cornerstone of our in-country/in the field interventions is our publication Making the Media Work for You: A Guide for Civi ... more

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Making the media work for you: A guide for civil society organisations [Arabic]

Lisa Essex, Brandon Oelofse

Maastricht: European Journalism Centre (2015), 103 pp.

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Haciendo que los medios trabajen para Usted: Una guía para organizaciones de la sociedad civil

Lisa Essex, Brandon Oelofse

Maastricht: European Journalism Centre (2015), 103 pp.

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Uamilifu wa Vyombo vya Habari Kwenu: Mwongozo kwa Mashirika ya Kiraia

Lisa Essex, Brandon Oelofse

Maastricht: European Journalism Centre (2015), 103 pp.

The Road Ahead: Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation

Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity Key Guidance

Gender, Media & ICTs: New Approaches for Research, Education & Training Key Guidance

Making the Media Work for You: A Guide for Civil Society Organisations

Making the media work for you: A guide for civil society organisations [Arabic]

Haciendo que los medios trabajen para Usted: Una guía para organizaciones de la sociedad civil

Uamilifu wa Vyombo vya Habari Kwenu: Mwongozo kwa Mashirika ya Kiraia

Countering Disinformation: A Guide to Promoting Information Integrity
Key Guidance

Gender, Media & ICTs: New Approaches for Research, Education & Training
Key Guidance