Table Of Content

Disinformation in the Global South ffffiirrss..iinndddd 11 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2288::3344 Disinformation in the Global South Edited by Herman Wasserman University of Cape Town Cape Town, South Africa Dani Madrid-Morales University of Houston Houston, Texas, USA ffffiirrss..iinndddd 33 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2288::3344 This edition first published 2022 © 2022 John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by law. Advice on how to obtain permission to reuse material from this title is available at http://www.wiley.com/go/permissions. The right of Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales to be identified as the authors of the editorial material in this work has been asserted in accordance with law. 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Neither the publisher nor authors shall be liable for any loss of profit or any other commercial damages, including but not limited to special, incidental, consequential, or other damages. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Wasserman, Herman, 1969- editor. | Madrid-Morales, Dani, 1980-editor. Title: Disinformation in the Global South / edited by Herman Wasserman, Dani Madrid-Morales. Description: Hoboken : John Wiley & Sons, Inc., 2022. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021033028 (print) | LCCN 2021033029 (ebook) | ISBN 9781119714446 (paperback) | ISBN 9781119714477 (pdf) | ISBN 9781119715597 (epub) | ISBN 9781119714491 (obook) Subjects: LCSH: Mass media--Political aspects--Developing countries. | Disinformation--Developing countries. | Fake news--Developing countries. | Press and politics--Developing countries. | LCGFT: Essays. Classification: LCC P92.2 .D57 2021 (print) | LCC P92.2 (ebook) | DDC 302.2309724--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033028 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033029 Cover image: © olaser/Getty Images Cover design by Wiley Set in 9.5/12.5pt STIXTwoText by Integra Software Services, Pvt. Ltd, Pondicherry, India 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 ffffiirrss..iinndddd 44 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2288::3344 This work is based on research supported by the South African National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences. ffffiirrss..iinndddd 55 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2288::3344 vii Contents Biographical Notes ix Foreword xv Guy Berger, UNESCO Director for Strategies and Policies in the Field of Information and Communication Section 1 – Histories, Theories, and Methods 1 1 Contextualizing Fake News: Can Online Falsehoods Spread Fast When Internet Is Slow? 3 Edson C. Tandoc Jr. 2 Disinformation in Arab Media: Cultural Histories and Political Dynamics 15 Saba Bebawi 3 Manipulated Facts and Spreadable Fantasies: Battles Over History in the Indian Digital Sphere 26 Sangeet Kumar 4 Research Methods in Comparative Disinformation Studies 41 Dani Madrid-Morales and Herman Wasserman Section 2 – Cultures of Disinformation 59 5 Noise in Kinshasa: Ethnographic Notes on the Meanings of Mis- and Disinformation in a Post-Colonial African City 61 Katrien Pype and Sébastien Maluta Makaya 6 Aliens, Spies, and Staged Vandalism: Disinformation in the 2019 Protests in Chile 74 Ingrid Bachmann, Daniela Grassau, and Claudia Labarca ffttoocc..iinndddd 77 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2233::2288 viii Contents 7 Encountering and Correcting Misinformation on WhatsApp: The Roles of User Motivations and Trust in Messaging Group Members 88 Ozan Kuru, Scott W. Campbell, Joseph B. Bayer, Lemi Baruh, and Richard Ling 8 “Rumor Debunking” as a Propaganda and Censorship Strategy in China: The Case of the COVID-19 Outbreak 108 Kecheng Fang 9 Media System Incentives for Disinformation: Exploring the Relationships Between Institutional Design and Disinformation Vulnerability 123 Jose Mari Hall Lanuza and Cleve V. Arguelles 10 Lies, Damned Lies, and Development: Why Statistics and Data Can No Longer Confront Disinformation in the Global South 140 Jairo Lugo-Ocando and Alessandro Martinisi Section 3 – Responses: Southern Perspectives 159 11 Online Misinformation: Policy Lessons from the Global South 161 Anya Schiffrin and Peter Cunliffe-Jones 12 Responses to Misinformation: Examining the Kenyan Context 179 Melissa Tully 13 H ow Three Mission-Driven News Organizations in the Global South Combat Disinformation Through Investigation, Innovation, Advocacy, and Education 193 Nabeelah Shabbir, Julie Posetti, and Felix M. Simon Conclusion 210 Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales Index 221 ffttoocc..iinndddd 88 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2233::2288 ix Biographical Notes Cleve V. Arguelles is a political scientist and PhD candidate in the Department of Political & Social Change at the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs of the Australian National University. His research on comparative and Southeast Asian politics including on populism has been published in the journals Asian Politics & Policy, Democratic Theory, and Review of Women’s Studies. He has a BA and MA Political Science from the University of the Philippines and Central European University, respectively. He is also Assistant Professorial Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at De La Salle University. Ingrid Bachmann is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. A former reporter, her research focuses on the role of news media in the definition of identities and meanings within the public sphere, and she specializes in the intersections between news narratives, gender, and political communication. Her research appears in Feminist Media Studies, Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly, and Journalism Practice, among other journals. Lemi Baruh (PhD, University of Pennsylvania, Annenberg School for Communication, 2007) is an Associate Professor at the Department of Media and Visual Arts at Koç University in Turkey. His research interests include new media technologies, particu- larly focusing on social media, identity, surveillance, and privacy. Joseph B. Bayer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communication and Translational Data Analytics Institute at the Ohio State University. He studies how people think about their social networks and communication technologies, along with the implications for individual wellbeing and societal change. In turn, his research aims to clarify how social cognition is changing in combination with mobile and social media. His work has been published in cross-disciplinary journals such as Communication Theory, Annual Review of Psychology, and Nature Human Behavior. Saba Bebawi is a Professor of journalism who holds a PhD in international news and has published on media power and the role of media in democracy-building, in addition to investigative journalism in conflict and post-conflict regions. She is the author of Media Power and Global Television News: The Role of Al Jazeera English (I.B. Tauris, 2016) and Investigative Journalism in the Arab World: Issues and Challenges (Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), and co-author with Mark Evans on The Future Foreign Correspondent ffllaasstt..iinndddd 99 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2222::3311 x Biographical Notes (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), in addition to being co-editor of Social Media and the Politics of Reportage: The “Arab Spring” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2014) and Data Journalism in the Global South (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020). Bebawi was an Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Fellow (2018–2020) for a project on Developing an Arab Culture of Investigative Journalism. Guy Berger is the Director for Strategies and Policies in the Field of Communication and Information at UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization). He has overseen much of UNESCO’s work on disinformation, including the major study Balancing Act: Countering Digital Disinformation while Respecting Freedom of Expression (UNESCO, 2020). He also leads UNESCO’s work in several pro- jects. These include the United Nations Plan of Action on the Safety of Journalists and the Issue of Impunity, UNESCO’s Internet Universality Indicators, and the monitor- ing of UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 16.10 indicators, which focus on the safety of journalists, and guarantees of access to information. Berger has a PhD from Rhodes University, South Africa, and has a long history of scholarship about press freedom in Africa. Scott W. Campbell is the Pohs Professor of Telecommunications and Professor of Communication Studies at the University of Michigan. His scholarship uses mixed methods to explain the uses and consequences of mobile media and communication for everyday life. Before joining Michigan, Campbell spent three years on faculty at Hawaii Pacific University. Prior to his academic life, he worked at Sprint PCS when they launched the first national digital mobile network in the US. Peter Cunliffe-Jones has been a visiting researcher and Co-Director of a course on media freedom at the University of Westminster since 2019, focusing on misinformation. In 2012, after a long career in journalism, he founded the first fact-checking organization in Africa. After stepping down in 2019, he was named senior advisor to the International Fact-Checking Network. Kecheng Fang is an Assistant Professor at the School of Journalism and Communication, the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests include journalism, political communication, and digital media. He received his PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. His work has appeared in New Media & Society, Information, Communication & Society, and International Journal of Press/Politics, among others. Daniela Grassau is an Assistant Professor in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She served for eight years (2012–2020) as managing editor of Cuadernos.info, the highest-ranked mass communication journal in Latin America. She is currently a PhD candidate in Sociology, and her main research areas are crisis journalism, traditional media (mainly TV) effects, and changes in journalism. Her research has been published in journals such as Communication and Society, International Journal of Communication, and Palabra Clave. ffllaasstt..iinndddd 1100 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2222::3311 Biographical Notes xi Sangeet Kumar is Associate Professor in the Department of Communication and the Director of International Studies at Denison University. His research examines the global dimensions of digital and popular culture. He is the author of The Digital Frontier: Infrastructures of Control on the Global Web (Indiana University Press, 2021) and numerous articles in journals including Internet Policy Review, Information, Communication and Society, International Journal of Communication, Popular Communication, and Global Media and Communication. Prior to his academic career he was a journalist for a daily newspaper based out of New Delhi, India. Ozan Kuru is an Assistant Professor of Digital Media in the Department of Communications and New Media and a Principle Investigator at the Centre for Trusted Internet and Community at the National University of Singapore. He received his PhD in Communication at the University of Michigan and worked as the Howard Deshong Postdoctoral Fellow at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania. He is broadly interested in indi- viduals’ engagement with digital technology and information about politics, health, and science in a cross-national context, with a particular focus on public opinion and survey methods. Claudia Labarca is an Associate Professor in the School of Communications at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile. She is the author of several papers and book chapters dedicated to the role of non-state actors in international relations and the role of trust and communications in international country image formation. She is also the author of the book Ni Hao Mr. Pérez, Buenos Días Mr. Li (Ediciones UC, 2015). Her research interests include trust building, strategic communication, and public diplomacy. Jose Mari Hall Lanuza is Assistant Professor of Political Science from the University of the Philippines, Manila, where he handles courses on political analysis, qualitative research methods, and Philippine politics. He has written on information poverty, media and diplomacy, and mediated political discourses. His most recent work tackles the interplay of disinformation and gendered political discourses in the Philippines, and the relationship between media systems and disinformation in Southeast Asia. His research focuses on disinformation, elections, and political communications in the Philippines, and the politics of media. Richard Ling (PhD, University of Colorado, Sociology) is the Shaw Foundation Professor of Media Technology at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. For the past two decades, he has studied the social consequences of mobile communication. Ling has written The Mobile Connection (Morgan Kaufmann, 2004), New Tech, New Ties (MIT, 2008), and Taken for Grantedness (MIT, 2012). He is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication and a founding co-editor of Mobile Media and Communication (Sage). In addition, along with Gerard Goggin and Leopoldina Fortunati, he is a founding co-editor of the Oxford University Press Series Studies in Mobile Communication. He has been elected as a member of Academia Europaea and Det Norske Vitenskaps Akademi (the Norwegian Academy of Arts and Letters), and he is a fellow of the International Communication Association. ffllaasstt..iinndddd 1111 1188--0033--22002222 0088::2222::3311