Media crisis and disinformation: the participation of digital newspapers in the dissemination of a denialist hoax

Abstract

Disinformation is a communicative phenomenon that frequently feeds on political or electoral topics, as well as other aspects of our reality. This research takes as a case study the coverage given by the Spanish digital media to a hoax broadcast during the Filomena storm in 2021 that insisted that the snow was plastic. The purpose of this work is to analyze the instrumentalization of fake information as an expression of the information media crisis in the current context of disinformation. We set out four specific objectives: (SO1) to study the spread of the hoax through the media, (SO2) to analyze the construction of headlines in the news pieces, (SO3) to investigate the treatment of the hoax in the content of the pieces, and (SO4) to analyze the sources used in the pieces. To reflect on this phenomenon, we propose a three-dimensional model (structural, economic, and pragmatic) aimed at clarifying the relationship between the logic of the spread of hoaxes on the Internet and the role played by traditional media in their diffusion. The methodology used combines workflow techniques of digital methods with quantitative and content analyses. The results reveal the appropriation of certain communication strategies by digital newspapers aimed at obtaining visits. We conclude that the Spanish media, by adapting to the dynamics of disinformation irresponsibly encouraged by the attention economy, subscribe to and reinforce the crisis of credibility faced by the media ecosystem.

Online misinformation during extreme weather emergencies: short-term information hazard or long-term influence on climate change perceptions?

“…Figure 1 provides a high-level overview of the main characteristics of the studies included in this review (see also supplementary table S2). [10,16,44,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] with regard to the main features of the case studies. The extreme weather events studied are primarily storms and wildfires, almost exclusively use Twitter data and focus on events in the USA and Australia; misinformation is mainly analyzed with a focus on emergency responses or climate perceptions, but not both.…”

“…Seven more articles were excluded after this review step. The presented review results are based on the 13 publications [10,16,44,[54][55][56][57][58][59][60][61][62][63] that met the inclusion criteria.…”

“…The reviewed studies focus almost exclusively on Twitter as a social media platform to study misinformation during extreme weather events (see supplementary table S2). Only two studies [54,59] use Facebook as a data source, one in combination with Twitter [59].…”

“…Wildfires in Australia [10,16,44,63] and California [62] are covered in five studies. Two studies consider localized storm events, in Spain [59] and Canada [54] respectively. Finally, one study uses Tweets posted during the 2015 Chennai floods in India as an example [57] to explore the spread of rumors during a disaster situation.…”

“…Several of the reported misinformation instances seem mundane or merely entertaining without a significance on emergency responses. This includes for example the rumor of a 'shark swimming up the freeway' [55], crocodiles having escaped during the Chennai floods [57] or a video of snow allegedly being plastic purported by YouTube video shared after the 2021 Filomena snow storm in Spain [59].…”