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Challenges for Fact-checking: Beyond False/True Verification

Les défis du fact-checking : au-delà de la vérification faux/vrai
Angeliki Monnier and Céline Ségur

Abstracts

Building on seven fundamental theoretical approaches to media influence and people’s behaviour toward information developed between the 1950s and 1980s—Two-Step Flow of Communication, Homophily, Encoding/Decoding, Uses and Gratifications, Arts of Poaching, Agenda-Setting, and Spiral of Silence—this paper puts into perspective the circulation of online content and the underlying mechanisms of disinformation in digital spheres. Our approach seeks to highlight the necessity, for theorists as well as practitioners, to consider fact-checking not only as a “false vs. true” verification mechanism, but as a communication process in and of itself.

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Introduction

  • 1 Claire Wardle, and Hossein Derakhshan, “Information Disorder : Toward an Interdisciplinary Framewor (...)
  • 2 Thierry Bardini, “Changement et réseaux socio-techniques : de l’inscription à l’affordance,” Réseau (...)

1Combating fake news is not simply about differentiating true from false information; it entails learning to question the diversity and the complexity of the “information disorder,” a phrase developed by Wardle and Derakhshan to describe the dysfunctions of contemporary information ecosystems.1 Wardle and Derakhshan distinguish disinformation, i.e. the production of misleading content whose intention is to deceive, from misinformation, i.e. the unintentional creation and distribution of false information. In fact, public opinion builds upon a variety of true and false information, and the public sphere is the place where information meets disinformation and misinformation. In this context, the affordances of the participatory web—as properties defining its possible uses2—combined with the various malicious uses of digital content observed all over the world (online disinformation campaigns, deepfakes, etc.) raise new challenges for information professionals, especially journalists and fact-checkers. The question becomes, then, how can fact-checking become more efficient so as to better promote truth and fight disinformation?

  • 3 The project brought together seven universities from six European countries: Finland, France, Greec (...)

2This contribution tackles this question by discussing the new mechanisms of the online circulation of information within the framework of some of the most emblematic canonical models of media reception developed in Communication Sciences. This work was developed as part of the European Erasmus+ Fact-Checking project (2019-2022), The European cooperation project on disinformation and fact-checking training.3 The authors of this article designed the e-Learning module « Media Audiences and Influence » for this training program.

Research Background: Fact-Checking as a Contested Practice

  • 4 Laurent Bigot, “Le fact-checking ou la réinvention d’une pratique de vérification,” Communication (...)
  • 5 Vauchez, “Les mythes professionnels des fact-checkeurs : Un journalisme de données au service de la (...)

3Cases of collusion between the political and industrial worlds as well as the journalistic community have exposed the problematic nature of the race for information, or in journalism scoops. The practice of fact-checking could contribute to mitigating the public’s distrust of information professionals. However, although fact-checking is generally appreciated by audiences, it is also sometimes held responsible for a certain reification of reality. This is because fact-checking is considered to overestimate the importance of facts but also to favour verifiable facts to the detriment of more complex situations.4 Its effectiveness is often questioned and put into perspective with the difficulty of bringing audiences to change their convictions, for example conspiracy theorists who firmly believe that citizens are the puppets of a global conspiracy set up by the powerful or elites. Fact-checkers and debunkers are themselves the object of suspicion and distrust by those who see their actions as further evidence of the manipulation of opinion by the mainstream media or the State. Consequently, fact-checking can also be counter-productive because, by correcting a piece of information, it puts it in the spotlight with the unintended consequence of making it even more newsworthy (Streisand effect)—even though empirical research nuances the capacity of fact-checking to set the agenda, as will be explained below in this paper. Still, others regret that fact-checking has become a fashionable phenomenon within the media and editorial offices and poke fun at the proliferation of fact-checking platforms and what is deemed an obsession with the truth. In this sense, fact-checking is seen as a tool to enhance the legitimacy of journalists.5 Undeniably, fact-checking practices and fact-checkers stand within the news production field: checking facts can be part of a strategy to gain capital within the field, in the Bourdieusian sense, and be seen as a more credible source of information.

  • 6 Joseph E. Uscinski, and Ryden W. Butler, “The Epistemology of Fact Checking,” Critical Review 25 no (...)
  • 7 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Revisiting the Epistemology of Fact-Checking,” Critical Review 27, no. 1 (201 (...)
  • 8 Joseph E. Uscinski, “The Epistemology of Fact Checking (Is Still Naìve) : Rejoinder to Amazeen,” Cr (...)
  • 9 Chloe Lim, “Checking How Fact-Checkers Check,” Research & Politics 5, no. 3 (2018), https://doi.org (...)

4In their oft-cited paper, Joseph E. Uscinski and Ryden W. Butler insisted on the “untenability of the naïve political epistemology at work in the fact-checking branch of journalism”.6 In line with other scholars, the authors criticized fact-checkers’ lack of selection criteria for picking statements to be checked. Michelle Amazeen7 attempted to respond to these criticisms, but her arguments have been met with reserve.8 According to the latter, given all the problems with fact-checking and the influence of biases that characterize this practice, it is hard to argue that fact-checkers are providing truth, they are rather engaging in politics by another name. Like others, Chloe Lim’s9 research results also suggest that fact-checking is difficult and that truth validation is challenging. Fact-checkers rarely evaluate statements that are exactly the same and disagree more often than one might suppose, particularly when politicians craft language to be ambiguous. At least in some cases, the strategic ambiguity of politicians may impede the fact-checking movement’s goals.

  • 10 David Yarrow, “From Fact-checking to Value-checking : Normative Reasoning in the New Public Sphere, (...)
  • 11 Nicole M. Krause, Isabelle Freiling, Becca Beets, and Dominique Brossard, “Fact-Checking as Risk Co (...)
  • 12 Italics in original.
  • 13 Krause, Freiling, Beets, and Brossard, “Fact-Checking as Risk Communication : The Multi-Layered Ris (...)
  • 14 Maria Kyriakidou, Stephen Cushion, Ceri Hughes and Marina Morani, “Questioning Fact-Checking in the (...)
  • 15 Ibidem, 15. Italics in original.

5Within this line of thought, David Yarrow10 suggests that fact-checking is a useful but incomplete framework for delivering an epistemically healthy public sphere. The author outlines the heuristic principle of “value-checking,” as a complement to fact-checking. It seeks to reinforce value-based reasoning and the ability to fully scrutinise, understand, and respond to political discourse. Nicole Krause et al.11 argue for the necessity and utility of viewing fact-checking as a form of risk communication in which the risk is misinformation. The authors highlight the importance of investigating “how fact-checkers’ credibility12 can be shored up or how existing fact-checking operations can partner with highly-trusted organizations to deliver messages more effectively”.13 Likewise, Maria Kyriakidou et al.14 suggest that “for fact-checking to play the revolutionary role imparted to it by practitioners and academics alike, it needs greater visibility”.15 In this sense, even though reservations about the limits of the verification process call for nuance in evaluating facts, they do not mean that the effort should be abandoned. In what follows, we will discuss the necessity to consider fact-checking not only as a “false vs. true” verification mechanism, but as a communication process in and of itself. Fact-checking’s visibility and credibility are two important challenges for fact-checkers.

Research Objectives: Visibility and Credibility as Challenges for Fact-Checking

6In order to better understand why fact-checking cannot totally solve the problem of disinformation within contemporary societies, the authors of the present contribution propose a reflection on fact-checking through the prism of the circulation and reception of information. We believe that combining insights from media reception theories and interpersonal communication can help enhance our understanding of the limits of information verification as well as that of the challenges for fact-checkers and journalists, in general.

  • 16 Cass R. Sunstein, On Rumors : How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, and What Can Be Done (New (...)

7In a seminal essay, Cass Sunstein,16 an American legal scholar known for his studies of constitutional, administrative, and environmental law, as well as behavioural economics, shed light on some of the mechanics in the dissemination of false rumours. He pointed specifically to “cascades”, “group polarization”, and “biased assimilation” as means of information mushrooming, and argued that corrective initiatives do not always work. Discussing real-life cases, the author illustrated the social and psychological forces that make the spread of disinformation inevitable, as it exists at a crossroads of personal disposition, preconception, and group dynamics. According to Sunstein, whether or not people believe a rumour and whether they are inclined to pass it on, firstly depends on what they already believe. Commenting, for instance, on a rumour claiming that Sarah Palin, the 2008 Republican vice-presidential nominee, mistook Africa for a country rather than a continent, Sunstein argued that those who already disliked Sarah Palin were more likely to accept the rumour. However, it was also the configurations of the flow of content and its spread that played a significant role in the rumour’s reception, according to the author. In other words, once a substantial amount of people gave credit to the story, many others came to believe it as well, since individuals tend to be strongly influenced by their peers. As Sunstein pointed out, people’s resistance to rumours related to a specific topic depends on their prior dispositions and opinions on the matter, their knowledge of it, as well as their trust in the source. Other parameters that also come into play are the social situation of the audience and the emotion provoked by the rumour.

  • 17 In what follows, we use the terms “theory,” “model,” and “approach” interchangeably to refer to ove (...)
  • 18 In this article, we address fact-checking in relation to disinformation/misinformation audiences, c (...)

8In line with and prolonging this standpoint, our approach seeks to highlight the necessity, for theorists as well as for practitioners, of considering fact-checking not only as a “false versus true” verification mechanism, but as a communication process that needs to take into account the online circulation patterns and the media reception mechanisms of contemporary digital ecosystems. We have identified seven fundamental theoretical approaches,17 developed between the 1950s and 1980s, on media influence and on people’s behaviour to information: the Two-Step Flow of Communication theory (Paul Lazarsfeld and Elihu Katz) and the related concept of Homophily (Robert K. Merton and Alice S. Kitt Rossi), the Encoding/Decoding model (Stuart Hall), the Uses and Gratifications approach (Jay Blumer and Elihu Katz), the Arts of Poaching theory (Michel de Certeau), the Agenda-Setting function of mass media (Maxwell Mac Combs and Donald Shaw), as well as the Spiral of Silence theory (Elisabeth Noëlle-Neumann). These theoretical approaches were put into perspective with contemporary notions and related works that characterize the circulation of online content, mainly: echo chamber effects and filter bubbles, cascade circulation model, cognitive bias, media affordances, attraction to falsity, and media influencers. By revisiting the aforementioned theoretical contributions in relation to audience practices in contemporary information and communication ecosystems, we aspire to provide new insights that will help us understand and combat disinformation as well as contribute to future research on fact-checking as a practice.18

  • 19 Nicholas Dias and Amy Sippitt, “Researching Fact Checking : Present Limitations and Future Opportun (...)

9Indeed, according to Nicholas Dias and Amy Sippitt,19 even though the fact-checking field has grown tremendously in the past decade, as has academic interest in the practice, research on fact-checking has yet to be entirely optimised. The authors point to the limited diversity and external validity of existing studies, which mostly focus on the short-term, corrective effects of individual fact-checks. Against this backdrop, our main argument is that beyond the fundamental restoration of truth, the challenges for fact-checking pertain to its capacity to be as visible and credible as false information can be. After briefly presenting the founding principles of these theories, we will show how they can be of use in expanding our understanding of digital disinformation phenomena. By providing an overview of key perspectives on media and new media effects that can be applied to understanding the complexity of fact-checking, we hope to show that the latter raises many enduring questions about theory and research, beyond the mere spread of false information: many of the processes that describe the reception of information or media messages need to be better understood in order to address the spread of misinformation and disinformation campaigns and their impact.

Reception Theories in Information-Communication: The Classics Are Still Relevant

  • 20 Kristen Anderson Wagner, “Reception Theory,” Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Encyclopedia.com 2 Jun (...)
  • 21 Hans-Robert Jauss, Pour une esthétique de la réception, trans. Claude Maillard (Paris : Gallimard, (...)

10According to Kristen Anderson Wagner,20 reception theory provides “a means of understanding media texts by understanding how these texts are read by audiences.” Reception theory places the audience at the core of the reception process, considering all of the various factors that might influence how people read and create meaning from media content. An important concept of reception theory is that meaning is created at the interaction between spectator/viewer/reader/user, etc. and the text. Let us remind readers that, according to Hans Robert Jauss,21 reception is an aesthetic experience where the reader reveals the meaning and value of the text through the activity of interpretation. Reception theories argue that contextual factors—perhaps even more than textual ones—influence the ways in which audiences interact with media. These factors refer to audiences’ identities and preconceived opinions, as well as to the circumstances of exposure, and even to broader social, historical, and political backgrounds. Reception theory has evolved over time, has been enriched by different approaches and perspectives. In what follows, we focus on two dimensions relevant to our argument: reception theory’s contributions to media visibility, as well as media content credibility.

Focus on Visibility: Agenda-Setting, Spiral of Silence, Homophily

  • 22 Maxwell McCombs, and Donald L. Shaw, “The Agenda setting Function of the Media,” Public Opinion Qua (...)
  • 23 Kurt Lang, and Gladys Lang, Politics and Television (Chicago : Quadrangle Books, 1968).

11The Agenda-Setting model was developed by Maxwell McCombs and Donald Shaw,22 American professors of journalism at the University of North Carolina. Before them, other researchers had initiated the idea of the media having an agenda-setting function: early in 1968, Kurt and Gladys Lang wrote that mass media were constantly presenting topics as objects suggesting what individuals in the mass should think, know, and have feelings about.23 Against this backdrop, the Agenda-Setting model demonstrated that the media have the ability to influence the importance placed on topics that concern the larger public. For example, during the 1968 US presidential election, McCombs and Shaw conducted a study that showed a strong correlation between what voters of North Carolina considered as the most important election issues, and what the local and national news media reported as the most important issues during the previous month. McCombs and Shaw observed that voters tended to consider the issues that had had the heaviest media coverage as the most important; and when the media paid less attention to a topic, it was like they were insinuating that this specific topic was not very important.

  • 24 Elizabeth Noëlle-Neumann, “La spirale du silence. Une théorie de l’opinion publique,” Hermès 4 (198 (...)

12In a very similar vein and expanding on the Agenda-Setting model, the Spiral of Silence theory, proposed by the German political scientist Elisabeth Noelle-Neumann,24 advocated that one’s perception of the distribution of public opinion impacts that one’s willingness to express their own political opinions. The main idea is that people influence each other’s willingness to express opinions through social interaction. According to the Spiral of Silence theory, people will be more confident and outward with their opinions when they notice that the latter is shared by a group. On the contrary, if they notice that their opinion is unpopular with the group, they will be more inclined to be reserved and remain silent. In other words, not isolating oneself within a group becomes more important than one’s own judgement. The importance of the group is prevalent.

13Another expression of the major role played by the group is homophily, i.e., the tendency for people to seek out or be attracted to those who are similar to themselves. According to Pierre Bourdieu, homophily reflects, in general, the agents’ efforts to maintain or reproduce a state of the social world or a field allowing the expression, the demonstration, or realignment of their dispositions:

  • 25 Pierre Bourdieu, Méditations pascaliennes (Paris : Éd. du Seuil, 1997) : 216. Translated by the aut (...)

The agent tries to update the potential inscribed in his body in the form of capacities and dispositions shaped by the external conditions. [...] This is one of the major principles [...] when it comes to daily choices of objects or people: guided by sympathies and antipathies, affections and aversions, likes and dislikes, people build an environment in which they feel ‘at home’ and where they can fulfil this absolute accomplishment of their desires called happiness.25

  • 26 Stéphanie Lukasik, s.v. “Homophilie.” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des (...)
  • 27 Elihu Katz, and Paul Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence. The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass (...)

14Stéphanie Lukasik26 points out that homophily is inherent in group formation. As Elihu Katz and Paul F. Lazarsfeld27 have underscored, the term “group” can also be used for ease of writing, in a restricted sense, to refer to the members present during an enunciative situation, i.e. when people interact and have a conversation. In this definition, the group is indeed “primary,” i.e. linked to the proximity of the conversational activity and to interpersonal relations. Even though these groups are usually small, they still build upon homophily, since individuals tend to gather around common values and interests. This has the effect of restricting world view, as groups consist of people with similar identities. It is noteworthy that homophily is also presented as one of the essential criteria for the formation of the relationship between opinion leaders and their interpersonal networks, which are the source of personal influence, as will be explained later in this paper.

Understanding Media Credibility: Two-Step Flow of Communication, Encoding/Decoding, Uses and Gratifications, Reading as Poaching 

  • 28 Sébastien Mort, s.v. “Katz (Elihu).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des p (...)
  • 29 Céline Ségur, s.v. “Lazarsfeld (Paul).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique de (...)

15A major stance in reception theory, which is of great interest in the present article, is the Two-Step Flow of Communication approach which was developed by Elihu Katz28 and Paul Lazarsfeld29 during the second part of the 20th century. Their work highlights the diverse response capacities of audiences to media content. It has put forward two ideas: mass media play a rather limited part in directly influencing people, most of whom form opinions under the personal influence of a few opinion leaders. The Two-Step Flow of Communication stresses human agency in media reception, stipulating that mass media influence is not linear. Indeed, research by Lazarsfeld and Katz showed that content is usually passed on to larger audiences by a few informal “opinion leaders.” These opinion leaders intercept, disseminate, but also interpret media content. In other words, the reception of mass media goes through the channels of interpersonal communication, especially within people’s primary circles. A two-step flow of communication operates because mass media messages get re-elaborated by opinion leaders, when the latter discuss or interact with people in their personal or professional networks. For this reason, opinion leaders may often have more influence than mass media per se. 

  • 30 Maxime Cervulle, s.v. “Hall (Stuart).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des (...)
  • 31 Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Television. Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, v (...)

16The role of audiences in media reception was further developed within the frame of the Encoding/Decoding theory which was elaborated by Cultural Studies scholar Stuart Hall, also during the second part of the 20th century.30 The Encoding/Decoding model was ground-breaking because it merged text and audience studies. It showed that messages can be read and understood differently from one person to another. Hall31 argued that the process of the media encoding and the process of the audiences’ decoding may not be exactly symmetrical, even though this does not mean that individual interpretations are unlimited. He explained that every society has its own dominant classifications of the social, cultural, and political worlds, and that these taxonomies constitute the “prevailing cultural order.” Media, and information media in particular, disseminate this prevailing cultural order and incite audiences to prevailing cultural readings of reality. However, as media texts are characterized by polysemy, divergent meanings do become possible. More particularly, according to Hall, audiences decode messages in one of the following three ways:  they accept the dominant-hegemonic position; they negotiate this position; they develop an oppositional stance. Hall advocates that these different ways of decoding media content are influenced by people’s socio-cultural backgrounds.

  • 32 Jay G. Blumler, and Elihu Katz, eds. The Uses of Mass Communications : Current Perspectives on Grat (...)

17Parallel to these discussions, the Uses and Gratifications theory was developed in the United States from the 1970s onwards.32 This approach studied media effects starting from the premise that individuals are active when copying media messages.  The Uses and Gratifications model postulates that media do not exert a hegemonic influence on their audiences: on the contrary, people use media to satisfy specific needs. These needs generate expectations with regard to the media, and media consumption can provide the satisfaction of these needs. Consequently, in order to understand media effects, researchers in the field of Uses and Gratifications take into account the context of people’s everyday lives in which media consumption takes place, but also their interpersonal relations, their psychological and social needs (for example, the need to be informed, to relax, etc.), as well as their social and cultural backgrounds and their influences on the interpretation of media messages. The Uses and Gratifications model identifies four types of needs that audiences seek to satisfy through media consumption: pleasure (escape everyday routines, enjoy oneself), information and education, social integration and interaction (i.e., media characters may be seen as companions in the absence of friends or family, relationships between fictional characters may be used as a means to help manage one’s own relationships with others in the real world, etc.); personal identity (media personalities can be used as models to build self-confidence, to be empowered, to make life decisions, etc.). The satisfaction of these needs is strongly linked to the social and cultural resources of the audiences. It becomes obvious then that media messages are not always understood in the ways they were initially encoded. In this sense, Uses and Gratifications theory agrees with the Encoding/Decoding model.

  • 33 Angeliki Monnier, s.v. “Certeau (Michel de).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et criti (...)
  • 34 Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien (Paris : Union générale d’éditions, 1980).

18Finally, the contribution of the French 20th century sociologist Michel de Certeau also corroborates the plurality and diversity of media uses and reception.33 Michel de Certeau was a Jesuit intellectual who was initially interested in religious populations excluded from the dominant order. Based on surveys of French cultural practices commissioned by the Ministry of Culture in the 1970s, de Certeau highlighted the “arts of poaching” (braconnage, in French) of ordinary people, i.e., the “tactics” they enact on a daily basis in order to cope with the “strategies” implemented by institutions.34 Braconnage is related to individuals’ social backgrounds, though the latter are not mechanically linked with personal tastes and interpretation frameworks. Applied to media reception, this approach highlights the plurality of assimilating and framing employed by ordinary users. This can even take the form of contradictory responses to media information.

  • 35 Céline Ségur, “L’étude des publics de télévision en SIC. Quelle évolution conceptuelle ?” Revue fra (...)

19Based on the aforementioned theoretical elements, our objective in what follows is to highlight that combating disinformation must also entail—beyond focusing on fact-checking tools and methods—understanding audience practices in contemporary information and communication ecosystems. Because of the insights they have provided on audiences35, the Classics in the domain of media reception still have an important role to play. Combined with more recent concepts that explain the circulation patterns of online information (echo chambers, filter bubbles, cascades, etc.), they shed light on the underlying mechanisms of disinformation in digital spheres. In this sense, they are necessary to build a holistic approach to grasping and combating disinformation, which exists at a crossroads of human behaviour and the technological and industrial specificities of new digital spheres.

Reconsidering Fact-checking: An Audience Approach

The Challenge for Visible Information: Algorithms, Conformity, Dominant Opinions

  • 36 Walter Quattrociocchi, Antonio Scala, and Cass R. Sunstein, “Echo Chambers on Facebook,” SSRN (2016 (...)
  • 37 Eli Pariser, Filter Bubbles : What the Internet Is Hiding from You (London : Penguin, 2011) ; Seth (...)

20Generally speaking, and even more so on the Internet, we know that individuals tend to look for information that corresponds to their interests, as well as to their long-held opinions. There is a certain conformity that is characteristic of human nature: it is more comfortable to accept ideas that are close to one’s own, than to confront them. As explained before, the concept of homophily offers insights on how social groups are formed on the principle of affinity through similarity. Not only is a group formed on the basis of a consensus around a concurring identity or idea, but also the progressive integration of members and the durability of the collective dynamics encourage conformity; homophily is thus necessary to the group. Within participatory platforms, circulating content is perhaps more valued in terms of its potential to be shared, experienced, and become a pretext for connection, and less in terms of the information it conveys. Studies conducted on information sharing practices on Facebook have made it possible to observe informational cascades which contribute to the constitution of echo chambers,36 i.e., digital environments where information is exchanged between the like-minded. New media affordances, mainly easiness to share content and interact with others, combined with a certain attraction to sensational—often false—information, exacerbate this tendency. Additionally, the use of algorithms, as automatic information dissemination systems on social media and networking platforms, results in personalised news feeds that correspond to users’ browsing histories, which reinforces pre-existing opinions as well as further confirms one’s interests. Known as “filter bubbles”,37 this phenomenon enhances the conforming effect of echo chambers.

  • 38 Chris J. Vargo, Lei Guo, and Michelle A. Amazeen,The Agenda-Setting Power of Fake News : A big Da (...)

21The impact of echo chambers and filter bubbles become even more salient when one takes into consideration that individuals, for social integration purposes, often prefer to align themselves with the dominant opinion, as demonstrated by the Spiral of Silence and Agenda-Setting theories. Indeed, from a psycho-sociological point of view, the fear of being perceived as deviant and being rejected by one’s social groups can lead individuals to keep their views silent when the latter diverge from what is considered to be the prevalent point of view. With this mechanism, when false information tends to spread to the point of becoming the dominant opinion, it sets the agenda and leaves little room for attempts to debunking. In fact, despite common preconceptions, research seems to suggest that fact-checkers are not influential in determining the news agenda, which remains intricately entwined with online partisan media.38

  • 39 Elizabeth Dubois, and Grant Blank, “The Echo Chamber Is Overstated : The Moderating Effect of Polit (...)
  • 40 Irfan Chaudhry and Anatoliy Gruzd, “Expressing and Challenging Racist Discourse on Facebook : How S (...)
  • 41 Arnaud Claes, Victor Wiard, Heidi Mercenier, Thibault Philippette, Marie Dufrasne, Arnaud Browet, a (...)

22Admittedly, recent studies discuss the real scope of the echo chamber effect39 and that of the Spiral of Silence in participatory web platforms.40 When it comes to young people in particular, research has shown that algorithm strategies are often countered by various users’ tactics, such as “un-following,” “not liking” and “not accepting as friends” those who contradict their worldview.41 It seems that young people understand, perhaps partially, the effects of algorithms, and cope with the latter within a mostly ambiguous relationship between acceptance and resistance. Even so, the question of the role of the connective structure of audiences, online and offline, remains primordial for the study of the circulation of disinformation but also for a better understanding of the limits of fact-checking. An audience approach brings researchers and practitioners to consider fact-checking beyond a simple content verification activity, to a communication process in its own right, with a reflection on its channels and targets.

The Challenge for Credible Information: Reception Frames, Gratifications, Influencers

  • 42 Adrian Bardon, The Truth About Denial : Bias and Self-Deception in Science, Politics, and Religion (...)
  • 43 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Making a Difference ? A critical Assessment of Fact-checking in 2012,” New Am (...)
  • 44 Nicolas Gauvrit, “Répondre au discours climatosceptique : quand les faits ne suffisent plus,” in De (...)
  • 45 Manon Berriche, “‘Regarde j’ai vu ça sur Facebook !’ : quand nos bavardages nourrissent les fake ne (...)
  • 46 All translations from French into English were done by the authors.
  • 47 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York : Doubleday, 1959).

23It is commonly accepted that people’s relation to media is widely diversified, based on their cultural environment. This environment influences individual expectations of the media, which can oscillate between entertainment, information, socialization, and personal identity building. The importance of motivations as well as reception frames comes into play here, forging cognitive biases.42 For example, research has shown that the more one identifies with a party, the more likely one is to be misinformed about issues involving that same party.43 Similarly, confronted with a scientific text that contradicts their preconceptions, the most fervent climate sceptics tend not to change their minds.44 As the Encoding/Decoding theory and the Uses and Gratifications approach have revealed, people interact with media messages on the basis of their prior opinions, but also according to the needs they seek to satisfy, e.g. confirmation of personal identity, entertainment, etc. A study conducted by Manon Berriche45 revealed the differentiated diffusion of information depending on its credibility and level of public interest: false information with no public interest is more likely to be spread within intimate communication circles, i.e., “communication spaces with few restrictions.”46 This is not only because there is less risk of losing face47 by disseminating false information in this type of relationship, but also because false information is then a pretext for jokes or provocation, feeding conversational exchanges.

  • 48 Claes, Wiard, Mercenier, Philippette, Dufrasne, Browet, and Jungers, Algorithmes de recommandation (...)
  • 49 Adrienne Shaw, “Encoding and Decoding Affordances : Stuart Hall and Interactive Media Technologies, (...)

24Interestingly enough, this also shows that the consumption of disinformation does not always take place in ignorance. As mentioned before, users can resort to tactics (in the sense of Michel de Certeau) to resist the effects of algorithmic recommendations.48 In this sense, certain devious practices of sharing false information can be the source of a viral phenomenon without this implying that those participants saw this information as credible. The perceptible, hidden, and false affordances of designed objects intersect with Hall’s dominant/hegemonic, negotiated, and oppositional reading positions.49 In this case, debunking has no effect on the spread of false news.

  • 50 Elihu Katz, and Paul Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence. The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass (...)
  • 51 Wardle and Derakshan, “Information Disorder : Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research an (...)

25Theories about media influence also highlight that the source of information is fundamental in making the latter credible. It is often not so much the content of the news that is important, but rather the trustworthiness bestowed upon the sender. Typically, people tend to listen to and believe news coming from their relatives (family, friends) and from those whom they deem trustworthy (medical professionals, for example). As explained before, the Two-Step flow of Communication theory highlighted the role of opinion leaders in the media influence process.50 According to this approach, the media exert limited and indirect effects on their audiences, because media information is received, filtered, and interpreted by individuals who in turn disseminate it to their personal and/or professional circles. These individuals have the status of opinion leaders because they are considered trustworthy by those who listen to their advice. They happen to have more access to the media than others, either because of their professional activity or their availability, for example. The credibility attributed to the information disseminated by opinion leaders is important, even more so than that attributed to the media itself. This theory of the two-step flow reveals the interference between the sphere of media communication and that of interpersonal communication. As media messages are invited into everyday conversations, media influence mixes with interpersonal influence. This is even more true on the Internet: on the one hand, it is no longer rare to comment on a news item that has just been consulted on the screen of one’s smartphone and also live with a close friend or relative; on the other hand, individuals are increasingly informed through interpersonal groups constituted on the basis of socio-numerical networks. Within contemporary digital informational spheres, people are well aware that there is false information circulating. It is often extremely difficult though to distinguish the truthfulness of information. This is exacerbated by the authors of disinformation who manage to copy the style of the posts of the information media. Consequently, “people are increasingly reliant on friends and family members to guide them through the information ecosystem”.51

  • 52 Divina Frau-Meigs, “Les Youtubeurs : les nouveaux influenceurs !” Nectart 5 (2017) : 126-136.
  • 53 Jean-Phillippe Cointet, Dominique Cardon, Andreï Mogoutov, Benjamin Ooghe, Guillaume Plique, and Pe (...)

26The role played by opinion leaders is all the more important since two figures of the leader now coexist: the traditional one encountered on a more or less daily basis (the pharmacist, the cousin who is a video game specialist, etc.), as well as a more contemporary one, the digital influencer, often a “youtuber”.52 Revolving around these two figures, information-sharing communities are formed. The particularity of contemporary opinion leaders is that they are designated as such by those they influence. In the 1950s, the competence (professional, social, etc.), demonstrated and recognized, was the main factor in the attribution, often consensual, of such confidence. Nowadays, the notoriety of influencers is based on more heterogeneous and sometimes vague criteria. In addition, the influence of traditional and mainstream media is still important, especially on X (ex-Twitter), where influencers mostly share information from the most popular and central outlets. According to Cointet et al., “fake news are phenomena that only become more widespread when dominant and influential actors in the political or journalistic space spread topics and dubious content originally circulating in the fringe of the information sphere.”53

Conclusion

27As access to the public sphere seems to be facilitated by digital technologies, false information has also become more visible, the psychological and social mechanisms of its circulation enhance its credibility. Disinformation is exacerbated by the way various audiences engage with it and amplify it, even without meaning to. Beyond the fundamental restoration of truth, the challenges for fact-checking concern its capacity to be as visible and credible as false information can be.

  • 54 Divina Frau-Meigs, Faut-il avoir peur des fake news ? (Paris : La Documentation Française, 2019).
  • 55 William H. Dutton, Bianca Reisdorf, Elisabeth Dubois, and Grant Blank, “Social Shaping of the Polit (...)
  • 56 Angeliki Monnier, Catherine Sotirakou, Costas Mourlas, Jerzy Gołuchowski, and Anna Losa-Jonczyk, “C (...)

28So, how can fact-checking become more efficient as to better promote truth and fight disinformation? On the basis of the elements presented in this article, it becomes obvious that among the major challenges that journalists, and fact-checkers in particular, are confronted with lies in their capability to identify influencers who are attributed the status of opinion leader within different target communities. Reimagining fact-checking formats, in order to enhance their attractiveness and visibility, also seems relevant. Indisputably, media education plays an important role in the attitudes towards media information54: fact-checking platforms are mostly consulted or followed by those who already double-check information and expose themselves to a variety of points of view. National media cultures and education come into play in shaping information practices,55 whereas getting the audiences involved in the verification of information through participatory and citizen journalism practices may be a promising path to combatting disinformation and improving lay attitudes towards fact-checking.56

  • 57 Lucas Graves, Anatomy of a Fact Check : Objective Practice and the Contested Epistemology of Fact (...)

29As Lucas Graves57 highlights, debates on the legitimacy and relevance of fact-checking draw on epistemological questions which are at the centre of both journalism and the sociology of science. According to Graves, there are similarities among the work of fact-checkers, investigative journalists, and scientists. Each of them deals with controversies in which not just facts but rules for determining them are in question, pointing to the way material, social, and discursive contexts structure factual inquiry. Indeed, the issue of disinformation and misinformation is not just a matter of truthfulness, it is a matter of information reception and interpretation. This article aimed at providing pieces of theoretical approaches that can be helpful to understand how things come to be taken as true. Revisiting some of the fundamental theoretical theories of media reception has made it possible to corroborate the need to study in detail the practices of circulation and reception of online information. Certainly, more empirical research needs to be done to readdress and revalidate the prominence of these approaches. An empirical study could be undertaken to understand the role of sociability in news circulation: who do people consider as online sources of information (social network platforms, friends, relatives, influencers, etc.)? How do(es) this(ese) source(s) influence people’s ability or willingness to interpret the information as true or false?

30Finally, another level of analysis suggested here relates to trust in the media. The circulation and reception of online information build upon varied, complex, and sometimes contradictory practices. On this particular point, the concept of Horizon of expectation developed by Hans Robert Jauss (1972), leading proponent of the aesthetics of reception, could be helpful. As mentioned supra and according to Jauss, the role of the reader, listener, or viewer, is crucial to understanding the interpretative relation between audience and medium. Indeed, the reader does not play a passive role, he/she is an active participant in the process of meaning production and representation. The horizon of expectation helps us understand the various interpretations of the same piece of literature. It draws upon literary horizons (familiar norms of a genre, implicit relationships between the text and its literary-historical surroundings, etc.) and sociocultural horizons (cultural background, life experiences, expectations of the reader, needs to be gratified). When it comes to media, trust is also part of the audiences’ disposition towards news, journalists, and fact-checking devices. Proven disinformation transmitted via a trusted media source could then engender an “aesthetic distance” between the audiences’ expectations and the new horizons resulting from the information disorder. In some cases, such a change might be necessary to enhance trust in fact-checking.

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Notes

1 Claire Wardle, and Hossein Derakhshan, “Information Disorder : Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making.” Council of Europe Report DGI (2017) 09, https://rm.coe.int/information-disorder-toward-an-interdisciplinary-framework-for-researc/168076277c

2 Thierry Bardini, “Changement et réseaux socio-techniques : de l’inscription à l’affordance,” Réseaux 76 (1996) : 141-142.

3 The project brought together seven universities from six European countries: Finland, France, Greece, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal and a press agency in Portugal. It designed a full curriculum on fact-checking to train media and communication professionals as well as teachers in charge of media education in identifying, preventing, and fighting against the digital dissemination of false and/or malicious information.

4 Laurent Bigot, “Le fact-checking ou la réinvention d’une pratique de vérification,” Communication & Langage 192 (2017a) : 131-156 ; Laurent Bigot, s.v. “Fact-checking.” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2017b. http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/fact-checking. Alexandre Joux, and Inès Gil, “Entre transparence des sources et entre-soi : une critique du fact-checking du débat de l’entre-deux tours de la présidentielle française de 2017,” Études de communication 53 (2019) : 67-84 ; Ysé Vauchez, “Les mythes professionnels des fact-checkeurs : Un journalisme de données au service de la vérité,” Politiques de communication 12 (2019) : 21-44, https://doi.org/10.3917/pdc.012.0021 ; Lorreine Petters, “Injonction à la transparence dans le fact-checking : de l’idéal de l’objectivité à une tentative de proximité,” SociologieS (2020), https://doi.org/10.4000/sociologies.14951 ; Vincent Chagneau, “Fact-checking : une guerre par l’information qui ne dit pas son nom ?” Revue internationale d’intelligence économique 13 (2021) : 143-153.

5 Vauchez, “Les mythes professionnels des fact-checkeurs : Un journalisme de données au service de la vérité,” 21-44 ; Alexandre Joux, and Brigitte Sebbah, “Les représentations implicites du pouvoir des médias d’information : L’exemple du lancement du Décodex,” Sur Le Journalisme, About Journalism, Sobre Jornalismo 9, no. 1 (2020) : 166–179. https://doi.org/10.25200/SLJ.v9.n1.2020.425

6 Joseph E. Uscinski, and Ryden W. Butler, “The Epistemology of Fact Checking,” Critical Review 25 no. 2 (2013) : 162, https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2013.843872

7 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Revisiting the Epistemology of Fact-Checking,” Critical Review 27, no. 1 (2015) : 1–22.

8 Joseph E. Uscinski, “The Epistemology of Fact Checking (Is Still Naìve) : Rejoinder to Amazeen,” Critical Review 27, no. 2 (2015) : 243-252, https://doi.org/10.1080/08913811.2015.1055892

9 Chloe Lim, “Checking How Fact-Checkers Check,” Research & Politics 5, no. 3 (2018), https://doi.org/10.1177/2053168018786848

10 David Yarrow, “From Fact-checking to Value-checking : Normative Reasoning in the New Public Sphere,” The Political Quarterly 92, no. 4 (2021) : 621-628, https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12999

11 Nicole M. Krause, Isabelle Freiling, Becca Beets, and Dominique Brossard, “Fact-Checking as Risk Communication : The Multi-Layered Risk of Misinformation in Times of COVID-19.” Journal of Risk Research 23, no. 7-8 (2020) : 1052-1059. https://doi.org/10.1080/13669877.2020.1756385

12 Italics in original.

13 Krause, Freiling, Beets, and Brossard, “Fact-Checking as Risk Communication : The Multi-Layered Risk of Misinformation in Times of COVID-19,” 1056.

14 Maria Kyriakidou, Stephen Cushion, Ceri Hughes and Marina Morani, “Questioning Fact-Checking in the Fight Against Disinformation : An Audience Perspective,” Journalism Practice (2022), https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2022.2097118

15 Ibidem, 15. Italics in original.

16 Cass R. Sunstein, On Rumors : How Falsehoods Spread, Why We Believe Them, and What Can Be Done (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009).

17 In what follows, we use the terms “theory,” “model,” and “approach” interchangeably to refer to overall frameworks and contexts used for understanding relationships between observable facts. Though nuances between these notions do exist (Sitwala Imenda, “Is There a Conceptual Difference between Theoretical and Conceptual Frameworks ?” Journal of Social Sciences 38, no. 2 (2014) : 185-195. https://doi.org/10.1080/09718923.2014.11893249)—e.g., “approach” mostly signifying the actual type of research conducted—these epistemological subtleties are beyond the scope of this paper.

18 In this article, we address fact-checking in relation to disinformation/misinformation audiences, considering that the latter play a part in the dissemination, visibility, and credibility of dis/misinformation. No matter how plausible they can be, fact-checking and truth-telling can encounter the opposition of differentiated interpretations, or even resistance, due to cognitive biases, the social conditions of their reception, and the effects of grouping and relations.

19 Nicholas Dias and Amy Sippitt, “Researching Fact Checking : Present Limitations and Future Opportunities,” The Political Quarterly 91, no. 3 (2020) : 605-613. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-923X.12892

20 Kristen Anderson Wagner, “Reception Theory,” Schirmer Encyclopedia of Film, Encyclopedia.com 2 Jun 2022, https://www.encyclopedia.com/arts/encyclopedias-almanacs-transcripts-and-maps/reception-theory

21 Hans-Robert Jauss, Pour une esthétique de la réception, trans. Claude Maillard (Paris : Gallimard, 1972).

22 Maxwell McCombs, and Donald L. Shaw, “The Agenda setting Function of the Media,” Public Opinion Quarterly 36 (1972) : 176-187.

23 Kurt Lang, and Gladys Lang, Politics and Television (Chicago : Quadrangle Books, 1968).

24 Elizabeth Noëlle-Neumann, “La spirale du silence. Une théorie de l’opinion publique,” Hermès 4 (1989) : 181-189.

25 Pierre Bourdieu, Méditations pascaliennes (Paris : Éd. du Seuil, 1997) : 216. Translated by the authors, as all translations from French in this article.

26 Stéphanie Lukasik, s.v. “Homophilie.” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2020, http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/homophilie

27 Elihu Katz, and Paul Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence. The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications (New York : Free Press, 1955).

28 Sébastien Mort, s.v. “Katz (Elihu).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2016, http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/katz-elihu

29 Céline Ségur, s.v. “Lazarsfeld (Paul).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2016, http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/lazarsfeld-paul

30 Maxime Cervulle, s.v. “Hall (Stuart).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2022. http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/hall-stuart/

31 Stuart Hall, “Encoding/Decoding,” in Television. Critical Concepts in Media and Cultural Studies, vol IV, ed. Toby Miller (London : Routledge, 2003), 43-53

32 Jay G. Blumler, and Elihu Katz, eds. The Uses of Mass Communications : Current Perspectives on Gratifications Research (Beverly Hills : Sage Annual Reviews of Communication Research, 1974).

33 Angeliki Monnier, s.v. “Certeau (Michel de).” Publictionnaire. Dictionnaire encyclopédique et critique des publics, 2017, http://publictionnaire.huma-num.fr/notice/certeau-michel-de

34 Michel de Certeau, L’invention du quotidien (Paris : Union générale d’éditions, 1980).

35 Céline Ségur, “L’étude des publics de télévision en SIC. Quelle évolution conceptuelle ?” Revue française des sciences de l’information et de la communication 7 (2015). https://journals.openedition.org/rfsic/1470

36 Walter Quattrociocchi, Antonio Scala, and Cass R. Sunstein, “Echo Chambers on Facebook,” SSRN (2016), https://ssrn.com/abstract =2795110.

37 Eli Pariser, Filter Bubbles : What the Internet Is Hiding from You (London : Penguin, 2011) ; Seth Flaxman, Sharad Goel, and Justin M. Rao, “Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers and Online News Consumption,” Public Opinion Quarterly 80 (2016) : 298-320, https://5harad.com/papers/bubbles.pdf

38 Chris J. Vargo, Lei Guo, and Michelle A. Amazeen,The Agenda-Setting Power of Fake News : A big Data Analysis of the Online Media Landscape from 2014 to 2016,” New Media & Society 20 (2018) : 2028-2049.

39 Elizabeth Dubois, and Grant Blank, “The Echo Chamber Is Overstated : The Moderating Effect of Political Interest and Diverse Media,” Information, Communication & Society 21, no. 5 (2018) : 729-745 ; Richard Fletcher, Craig T. Robertson, and Rasmus Kleis Nielsen, “How Many People Live in Politically Partisan Online News Echo Chambers in Different Countries ?” Journal of Quantitative Description : Digital Media, 1 (2021), https://doi.org/10.51685/jqd.2021.020 ; Annie Y. Chen, Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler, Ronald E. Robertson, and Christo Wilson, “Subscriptions and external links help drive resentful users to alternative and extremist YouTube videos,” Science Advances 9, no. 35 (2023), https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.add8080.

40 Irfan Chaudhry and Anatoliy Gruzd, “Expressing and Challenging Racist Discourse on Facebook : How Social Media Weaken the Spiral of Silence Theory,” Policy & Internet 12, no. 1 (2020) : 88-108.

41 Arnaud Claes, Victor Wiard, Heidi Mercenier, Thibault Philippette, Marie Dufrasne, Arnaud Browet, and Raphaël Jungers, Algorithmes de recommandation et culture technique : penser le dialogue entre éducation et design,” Tic&Société 15 (2021) : 127-157, https://doi.org/10.4000/ticetsociete.5915.

42 Adrian Bardon, The Truth About Denial : Bias and Self-Deception in Science, Politics, and Religion (New York : Oxford University Press, 2019).

43 Michelle A. Amazeen, “Making a Difference ? A critical Assessment of Fact-checking in 2012,” New America Foundation (2013), https://static.newamerica.org/attachments/10215-making-a-difference/Amazeen_-A_Critical_Assessment_of_Factchecking.4a3289cb3fcd4a8faf0d94f40ebcdc35.pdf

44 Nicolas Gauvrit, “Répondre au discours climatosceptique : quand les faits ne suffisent plus,” in Des têtes bien faites : Défense de l’esprit critique, ed. Nicolas Gauvrit (Paris : Presses Universitaires de France, 2019), 107-120, https://doi.org/10.3917/puf.gauvr.2019.01.0107

45 Manon Berriche, “‘Regarde j’ai vu ça sur Facebook !’ : quand nos bavardages nourrissent les fake news,” The Conversation France, 23 septembre 2020, https://theconversation.com/regarde-jai-vu-ca-sur-facebook-quand-nos-bavardages-nourrissent-les-fake-news-123426

46 All translations from French into English were done by the authors.

47 Erving Goffman, The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (New York : Doubleday, 1959).

48 Claes, Wiard, Mercenier, Philippette, Dufrasne, Browet, and Jungers, Algorithmes de recommandation et culture technique : penser le dialogue entre éducation et design,” : 127-157.

49 Adrienne Shaw, “Encoding and Decoding Affordances : Stuart Hall and Interactive Media Technologies,” Media, Culture & Society 39 (2017) : 592-602.

50 Elihu Katz, and Paul Lazarsfeld. Personal Influence. The Part Played by People in the Flow of Mass Communications.

51 Wardle and Derakshan, “Information Disorder : Toward an Interdisciplinary Framework for Research and Policy Making,” (Council of Europe Report DGI, 2017) : 12.

52 Divina Frau-Meigs, “Les Youtubeurs : les nouveaux influenceurs !” Nectart 5 (2017) : 126-136.

53 Jean-Phillippe Cointet, Dominique Cardon, Andreï Mogoutov, Benjamin Ooghe, Guillaume Plique, and Pedro Ramaciotti Morales, “Uncovering the structure of the French media ecosystem,” IC2S2 (Zurich, Jul 2021) : 1, https://spire.sciencespo.fr/hdl :/2441/6puvcsco0e95q8daij2do98obi/resources/2107.12073.pdf.

54 Divina Frau-Meigs, Faut-il avoir peur des fake news ? (Paris : La Documentation Française, 2019).

55 William H. Dutton, Bianca Reisdorf, Elisabeth Dubois, and Grant Blank, “Social Shaping of the Politics of Internet Search and Networking : Moving beyond Filter Bubbles, Echo Chambers and Fake News,” Quello Center Working Paper No. 2944191 (March 31, 2017), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm ?abstract_id =2944191.

56 Angeliki Monnier, Catherine Sotirakou, Costas Mourlas, Jerzy Gołuchowski, and Anna Losa-Jonczyk, “Collaborative Fact-Checking Through Participatory Journalism, Crowdsourcing and Gamification,” International Association for Media and Communication Research conference, Beijing, July 2022.

57 Lucas Graves, Anatomy of a Fact Check : Objective Practice and the Contested Epistemology of Fact Checking,” Communication, Culture & Critique 10 (2017) : 518-537.

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References

Electronic reference

Angeliki Monnier and Céline Ségur, Challenges for Fact-checking: Beyond False/True VerificationInMedia [Online], 10 | 2025, Online since 01 June 2025, connection on 18 July 2025. URL: http://journals.openedition.org/inmedia/3149; DOI: https://doi.org/10.4000/145d4

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About the authors

Angeliki Monnier

Angeliki Monnier is professor in information and communication sciences at the University of Lorraine, Metz, France, director of Crem (Centre de recherche sur les médiations). Her research focuses on media discourses and usages. She is particularly interested in informational environments, especially those online. She was the coordinator of the European Commission’s Connect project CALYPSO – Collaborative AnaLYsis, and exPosure of disinformation (2021-2022). She has recently led a Franco-German ANR project on online hate speech against migrants (M-Phasis: Migration and Patterns of Hate Speech in Social Media. A Cross-cultural Perspective, 2019-2022) and was local project manager for the European Erasmus+ Fact-checking project, a project articulating pedagogy and research (2019-2022). Université de Lorraine, CREM, F-57000 Metz, France

Céline Ségur

Céline Ségur is professor in information and communication sciences at the University of Lorraine, Metz, France. She studies media reception and audiences and has developed an epistemological approach to better understand the circulation and reception of disinformation. She edited French Perspectives on Media, Participation and Audiences (Palgrave Macmillan, 2020) and participated in the European Erasmus+ Fact-checking project, a project articulating pedagogy and research (2019-2022). Université de Lorraine, CREM, F-57000 Metz, France

By this author

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