Collaborative fact-checking through participatory journalism, crowdsourcing, and gamification
Résumé
This contribution will present the methodology and the results of an ongoing European project on the role of collaborative analysis in the exposure of disinformation. The project consists in the implementation of a crowdsourcing ecosystem where citizens can combat disinformation campaigns by participating in a game for good. The aim of this endeavour is to
enhance fact-checking through the participation of different actors with different levels of responsibilities, forming communities of practice. These communities comprise professional journalists, experts, and ordinary citizens. The consortium consists of 3 internationally recognised universities, with complementary expertise in fact-checking education, 1 NGO, and 5 small-scale online media organisations, which are the ones that suffer the most from the lack of news verification resources. Universities are located in western, central and south-eastern Europe (France-Poland-Greece). Citizen journalism has been investigated by leading researchers and journalists such as Mark Glaser, Joseph Lasica and Dan Gillmor, who refer to citizen journalists as “street people”, “ordinary people” or “regular people”, who carry out activities supporting news production through digital tools. Participatory journalism or cooperative journalism is also identified as a new form of journalism facilitated by the use of digital technologies, among them social media and online platforms for collaboration between professional journalists and other audiences. There are several different ways of looking at collaborative journalism. We define it as the practice of pursuing journalistic endeavours using, among other things, audience engagement activities, collaborative data collection and sharing, and especially collaborative production and verification of news. Emerging research indicates that crowdsourcing is a promising approach for helping identifying misinformation, and Facebook has started to engage in related pilot studies. The role of gamification (i.e. the implementation of game design elements in real-world contexts for non-gaming purposes) in enhancing fact-checking and media literacy skills has also been under discussion over the last years. Our project builds upon these premises, and seeks to enhance media and information literacy empowering “people, communities and nations to participate in and contribute to global knowledge societies” (UNESCO, 2013). The project is designed in accordance with the Connect/2020/5464403 EU call text, and
directly aims to both support the EU strategy against disinformation and complement EDMO’s (European Digital Media Observatory) activities. It builds upon three complementary methodological approaches which are combined to deliver an innovative one: traditional fact-checking techniques, community building practices, gamification elements. We believe that our submission will find its place in the Participatory Communication Research Section (PCR) focusing on the theory and practice of participatory communication. It corresponds more specifically to its n° 4 theme (Participation and sustainability challenges) which takes an interest in the role of the individual and collective agency in order to address, in a sustainable way, the challenges raised by contemporary societal dysfunctions