How social media users get their news: The informational value of memes, hot takes, call outs, and comment threads during breaking events
Agata Stepnik and Joanne Gray
An increasing number of people globally say they avoid the news. But are they avoiding the news or the news media? In a longitudinal ethnographic study of Australian social media users, we repeatedly observed self-identified news avoiders encountering information about major news events, in the form of memes, hot takes, call outs, and comment threads.
Disinformation in practice: Threats, actors, mechanisms, and constraints according to practitioners
Grégoire Darcy and Sacha Altay
How do the practitioners charged with fighting disinformation understand the problem they are meant to solve? We surveyed 106 French practitioners across military, government, regulatory, civil-society, and media organizations. These practitioners converge on an upstream, supply-side diagnosis (platforms and amplification structures, rather than public demand, drive the spread of disinformation) but describe a field blocked by weak coordination, scarce resources, and fear of censorship accusations.
How can approaches from physical ecology help research and policy on the information environment?
Alicia Wanless, Claire Wardle and David A. Scales
Scholars and policymakers increasingly use ecological metaphors such as “information environment” and “information ecosystem” to describe contemporary informational spaces. Ecology offers more than loanwords. Its concepts and frameworks can help researchers understand relationships among people, technology, content, and society. We leverage natural science definitions and Pickett and Cadenasso’s six parameters of physical ecosystems to develop concrete models for studying complex informational systems.