A Picture Paints a Thousand Lies? The Effects and Mechanisms of Multimodal Disinformation and Rebuttals Disseminated via Social Media

Abstract

Today's fragmented and digital media environment may create a fertile breeding ground for the uncontrolled spread of disinformation. Although previous research has investigated the effects of misinformation and corrective efforts, we know too little about the role of visuals in disinformation and fact checking. Against this backdrop, we conducted an online experiment with a diverse sample of U.S. citizens (N = 1,404) to investigate the credibility of textual versus multimodal (text-plus-visual) disinformation, and the effects of textual and multimodal fact checkers in refuting disinformation on school shootings and refugees. Our findings indicate that, irrespective of the source, multimodal disinformation is considered slightly more credible than textual disinformation. Fact checkers can help to overcome the potential harmful consequences of disinformation. We also found that fact checkers can overcome partisan and attitudinal filterswhich points to the relevance of fact checking as a journalistic discipline.

Beyond (Mis)Representation: Visuals in COVID-19 Misinformation

“…Despite the proliferation of scholarship on misinformation over the last several years, and the broader observation that we live in a "visual culture" where much signification is carried out through visuals (Evans and Hall 1999: 2), there remain few studies of visuals in mis-or disinformation. Recent work by Hemsley and Snyder, for instance, provides a framework of how visual artifacts contribute to misinformation (Hemsley and Snyder 2018) while Hameleers, Powell, et al (2020) investigate the credibility of textual versus multimodal (text-plus-visual) disinformation, finding that multimodal disinformation is considered slightly more credible than textual disinformation. Despite these examples, broader studies of visuals in misinformation remain few and far between.…”

“….] where the communicator distributes incorrect information to achieve a certain (political) goal” ( Hameleers, Powell, et al 2020 : 282–83)—and misinformation, false or misleading information spread unintentionally ( Wardle 2017 , para. 1).…”

Una nueva taxonomía del uso de la imagen en la conformación interesada del relato digital. Deep fakes e inteligencia artificial

“…-para hacer revisionismo histórico sobre el que construir una narrativa: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzOVqClci_s La primacía de lo emocional frente a lo racional concede un papel protagonista a lo visual, a la imagen, frente al discurso elaborado a través del texto (Hameleers et al, 2020). Al mismo tiempo, la economía de la atención en la que muchas empresas de nuevas tecnologías basan su negocio propicia la rápida obsolescencia de las noticias, rebajando así las exigencias de calidad de la manipulación (salvo cuando se desarrollan herramientas automatizadas de verificación) (Lorenz- Spreen et al, 2019).…”

“…El umbral de entrada en el negocio de la distribución de noticias -verídicas o falsas-se ha ido haciendo cada vez más accesible, una afirmación particularmente importante para el caso de las imágenes, antes sólo al alcance de actores que dispusieran de la tecnología y los recursos apropiados (Paris;Donovan, 2019). La reputación e imagen de marca de los medios, por el tiempo que se tarda en construir, es la única barrera real que sigue existiendo en la era digital (Hameleers et al, 2020). No obstante, la posibilidad de falsificar medios consagrados introduciendo desinformación entre sus contenidos digitales destapa un nuevo frente en el combate contra las falsas noticias.…”

Mobilizing collective hatred through humour: Affective–discursive production and reception of populist rhetoric

“…Thus, by focusing on both populist rhetoric and its like‐minded and opposing audience’s affective–discursive reactions, we hope to contribute to the recent call to investigate social and political polarization of contemporary societies by studying the simultaneous construction of populist and anti‐populist discourse (Stavrakakis, 2014; Stavrakakis, Katsambekis, Kioupkiolis, Nikisianis, & Siomos, 2018). Second, the article responds to the call to broaden the analysis of political communication in the field of multimodality (Hakoköngäs et al ., 2020; Hameleers, Powell, Van Der Meer, & Bos, 2020). We seek to show how the shift from the analysis of verbal and textual communication to the multimodal analysis of narration, images, sounds, voice, light, and speed enables the grasping of the complex interplay between different communication modes in populism’s persuasiveness.…”