Issue 1

In this editorial, we share some of the journal’s key statistics for 2021, including acceptance rate, processing and publication times, and other useful data. 

By Natascha Chtena

Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy, Harvard University, USA

Image by mohamed_hassan on Pixabay

In 2021, we received 109 submissions in total, which included 85 research articles, 18 commentaries, and 6 research notes.

Addendum to HKS Misinformation Review “Research note: Examining potential bias in large-scale censored data” (https://doi.org/10.37016/mr-2020-74), published on July 26, 2021.

By Jennifer Allen

Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA

Markus Mobius

Microsoft Research, USA

David M. Rothschild

Microsoft Research, USA

Duncan J.

In the new information environment represented by the internet and social media platforms, information of public health importance is transmitted rapidly by decentralized, interpersonal networks rather than through traditional sources like public health officials or professional journalists, thus requiring a new approach to counteracting misinformation.

There is currently no easy way to discover potentially problematic content on WhatsApp and other end-to-end encrypted platforms at scale. In this paper, we analyze the usefulness of a crowd-sourced tipline through which users can submit content (“tips”) that they want fact-checked.

We studied the relationship between Facebook advertisements from Chinese state media on the global media environment by examining the link between advertisements and online news coverage of China by other countries. We found that countries that see a large increase in views of Facebook advertisement from Chinese state media also see news coverage of China become more positive.

A wealth of interventions have been devised to reduce belief in fake news or the tendency to share such news. By contrast, interventions aimed at increasing trust in reliable news sources have received less attention. In this article, we show that, given the very limited prevalence of misinformation (including fake news), interventions aimed at reducing acceptance or spread of such news are bound to have very small effects on the overall quality of the information environment, especially compared to interventions aimed at increasing trust in reliable news sources.