Data and (Mis)information Lecture 1, 25-10-2021
Facts?
• Facts versus beliefs – what you believe to be a fact
People use a lot in their lives ‘I believe this is true’ and therefore I will use it
There is a difference between:
- Objective truth = truth verified by abundant evidence, universally accepted
- Subjective truth = beliefs backed up by some evidence, e.g. theories, hypotheses, often
competing with other beliefs → there is some evidence if you are lucky, but people are
opposed through each other
Examples:
- The world is not flat: backed up by arguments and thus objective truth;
- The climate changes due to human interference: enough evidence so objective truth;
- More than two hours of gaming is bad for you health: can be found in a study and people can
believe in it, but there is as much evidence otherwise and people have other opinions about
it, and thus a subjective truth.
Feelings over facts?
Some people try to navigate through life, not based on facts, but what they feel to be true → this is
what we call an emotional truth (the information ‘feels true’)
Post-truth = relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in
shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief
- Climate change
- COVID-19
- Refugee crisis
The online network poses a lot of additional problems: you just post something out there and it goes
viral, you cannot undo the posting, nothing to be done anymore. We have a hyperconnected
network in which a (false) fact/feelings/conspiracy theories can easily travel. Everything is connected
to everything.
→ digital wildfires
= massive digital misleading information
= impact amplified by hyperconnectivity
= rapid viral spread of information, with potential serious consequences
For example, a British parliamentary individual was said to abuse a child, while in fact he didn’t.
A study by Vosoughi, Ray, & Aral (2018): Lies spread faster than the truth
They found:
- False news reached more people than the truth
o The top 1% of false news cascades diffused to between 1000 and 100.000 people
- ….
Another issue = Artificial amplification → the artificial amplification of online traffic to create the
illusion of popularity and support (false followers, false likes, etc.)
An important distinction in this course is between:
- Misinformation = resulting from honest mistakes (spread because of a mistake, for example
science journalists who try to make scientific research understandable, mistake while trying
to understand it and consequently give readers the wrong information)
,For example: misreporting about a hurricane because it was so hard to get the truth; the article
about drinking milk that subtlety mentioned dead cases because the authors failed to interpret the
hard scientific information
- Disinformation = resulting from deliberate intention to deceive (a purpose to mislead
people)
For example: satire; 5G information; information about the coronavirus (so conspiracy theories)
The label can change! It depends on the one who is sharing it at the moment. For example with
information about the coronavirus: sometimes the first spreader wants to consciously mislead you
and therefore it is at that moment disinformation; however, when a second person really thinks it is
true and also shares it, at that moment it is misinformation.
Lecture 3 Data & (Mis)information Monday November 1, 2021
The example of how Hugo de Jonge framed the message about anti-vaxxers is a classic example of
framing. He framed the information differently, he said ‘I want to protect the people who are not
vaccinated’ to take a particular perspective (that sounds positive).
Framing versus agenda setting
→ they are related, but not the same
In the perfect world, you can easily make sense of all the information that comes to you and you
easily see what the facts are, etc.
You hope that the facts are right and correct.
However, in the real world many things can go wrong in the collection of data. There are many
pitfalls.
Thus: in the perfect world there is important stuff and the media writes about it in a realistic way.
However: could it be the other way around? That the news story determines what we find
important? → that is agenda setting
A concrete example of agenda setting:
OJ Simpson (an American football player) was accused of murdering his ex-girlfriend and her new
partner. There was a trial: in the first trial he wasn’t punished (the jury thought he was not guilty), in
the second trial he paid a lot of money that the case was dropped, in 2007 he was convicted and had
to go in jail.
This story got a lot of attention in the media. The media started covering this case because it was a
big/important issue.
Two different covers: one is more about he is guilty (trail of blood), the other one is more about how
this fault can happen in the USA (An American tragedy).
The one of the TIME is darker, they wanted to frame it as a case of racism and the only reason he
was accused was because he was black. However, the other perspective was that he was guilty and it
is a fact that he murdered the people.
→ this is an example of both framing and agenda setting:
• Agenda setting = the media decided to put the case on the agenda, it was in the media all
the time. No matter how it is addressed, by putting it on the agenda and giving attention to
it, it is agenda setting.
• TIME wanted to frame it like a case of racism
, Agenda setting = certain topics get more attention than other topics, it is about making something
important.
→ what to think about? What are the topics that we find important as an audience/that we should
address?
→ media do not tell us what to think, but rather what to think about.
With framing, media provide a focus and environment for reporting a story, influencing how
audiences will understand or evaluate it.
Basic assumptions of agenda setting:
• If the media covers the topic more than a different topic, people will find that topic more
important.
• Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as
more important than other issues.
• The importance of issues in the news media is the major determinant of the public’s
perception of what matters.
• “The press and the media do not reflect reality; they filter and shape it.”
Classic example: Chapel Hill Study (1968) → a study in the small town Chapel Hill and ask people
what they found important. They made a selection of media topics that were addressed a lot in the
media and afterwards they asked people to what they found a certain topic more important for the
elections. It seemed like the topics that were addressed more in the media, people found it more
important for the elections.
→ this would mean that the media can decide what people find important, which is quite
worrisome!
Cognitive effects of agenda setting:
• Media concentration on a few issues and subjects leads the public to perceive those issues as
more important than other issues (McCombs & Shaw, 1972).
• Agenda setting occurs through a cognitive process known as accessibility.
• Accessibility implies that the more frequently and prominently the news media cover an
issue, the more instances that issue becomes accessible in the audience's memories.
→ because it is more accessible, you find it more important. This has to do with the mere
exposure effect, it is almost the same. It is really about frequency: the more frequent, the
more it will be accessible in your mind and the more important you think it is.
The B/13 experiment is a good example of equivalence framing: you have exactly the same
information, but depending on the frame, you can understand the information differently.
How are agenda setting and framing intertwined?
Media put a certain topic on the agenda and then put a frame about it. It is hard to find media that
don’t use framing at all.
Definitions of framing: equivalence versus emphasis
Equivalence means that things are the same.
Narrow definition of framing =
“Framing defines a dynamic, circumstantially bound process of opinion formation in which the
prevailing modes of presentation in elite rhetoric and news media coverage shape mass opinion.
