A resource by Jayne Cravens
  via coyotecommunications.com & coyoteboard.com (same web site)

This section of my web site is no longer updated. The last update was in early 2023.

More Resources

• BioCaster was an ontology-based text mining system for detecting and tracking the distribution of infectious disease outbreaks from linguistic signals on the Web. The system continuously analyzed documents reported from over 1700 RSS feeds, classified them for topical relevance and plots them onto a Google map using geocoded information. Archived versions of the system can be seen by searching for www.biocaster.org on archive.org. The tool no longer exists, but provides an excellent example of how technology could be used - a similar tool could be developed to monitor Twitter, for instance.

• The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) Communication for Development (C4D) web site section shares information and materials any initiative can use to help educate individuals and communities about how to prevent the spread of the Ebola virus and how to care for those already affected. Materials include:
  • Fact Sheets – For example, key messages, brochures with facts, and slide presentations.
  • Visual materials like a poster of signs and symptoms and a flip chart for health communicators.
  • Audio materials like songs and public service announcement (PSA) spots.
  • Training materials.
  • Guidelines for community volunteers.
  • Planning Documents – For example, a West and Central Africa (WCARO) strategy framework model.
  • Other Tools – the Behaviour Change Communication In Emergencies: A Toolkit, Essentials for Excellence – Research, Monitoring and Evaluating Strategic Communication, and the UNICEF Cholera Toolkit.
  
  
• The Communications Initiative is compiling information from a range of organizations regarding how to address communications challenges regarding Ebola. It’s updated frequently, and it’s a must-read for any development communications or public health communications specialist.


• In a study published in January 2016 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences , researchers examined the diffusion of misinformation on Facebook, examining the spread of both conspiracy theories, or “alternative, controversial information, often lacking supporting evidence,” (for example, the idea that vaccines can cause autism) and scientific news. They found that the spread of misinformation online generally takes place within clusters of people who tend to consume the same types of information - they become “echo chambers,” sharing only the information that further solidifies their beliefs and polarizes communities that community from science and facts. They found that highly segregated communities, or echo chambers, existed around each type of content, and then content tends to circulate only within its own community. Community members are engaged in confirmation bias, the tendency of individuals to pay attention to or believe information that confirms the personal values and beliefs they already hold, rather than allowing their beliefs to be changed by new information. Robert Brulle, a professor of sociology and environmental science at Drexel University, says in this article about the study, “Individuals want to maintain their self-identity and self-image.They’re not going to read something that challenges their values, their self-worth, their identity, their belief system.”


• There is research that shows that overwhelming someone with facts can actually make them double-down on the misinformation they believe. A study described in a paper by Schwarz et al, found that a flyer by the Center for Disease Control (CDC) in the USA containing "facts and myths" about vaccines increased intentions to vaccinate immediately but had the opposite effect after only half an hour - when the participants began remembering the myths as facts. This article "I Don't Want To Be Right" in The NewYorker by Maria Konnikova agrees, and notes, "The longer the narrative remains co-opted by prominent figures with little to no actual medical expertise - the Jenny McCarthys of the world - the more difficult it becomes to find a unified, non-ideological theme. The message can't change unless the perceived consensus among figures we see as opinion and thought leaders changes first." The Konnikova article cites numerous articles about people's perceptions about facts and is worth of a read - and a reread.


• Culture and Behaviour in Mass Health Interventions: Lessons from the Global Polio Eradication Initiative. "Interpreting resistance to vaccination as essentially religio-cultural marginalises an understanding of resistance as the rational and strategic response by households and communities to systematic conditions of inequity and exclusion." This is the central thesis advanced in this paper, which draws on a desk-based review of literature, real-time epidemiological evidence, and the author's own field-based experience working with the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI) over periods since 2001 in Nigeria, India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. Noting that the definitive eradication of polio worldwide now hinges on maximising household oral polio vaccine (OPV) acceptance and delivery in just a few endemic countries, author Sebastian A.J. Taylor cites evidence suggesting that, "while vaccinator performance generally, and physical access related to security, create blockages in the vaccination supply-side, unwillingness to be vaccinated by small groups of households and communities constitutes the principal demand-side barrier." This resistance, "often occurring in areas with substantial Muslim population, has been associated with fear and rumour fuelled by ignorance", as well as religious objection, which Taylor describes as "problematically merged in a religio-cultural interpretation of resistance as a kind of Islamic obscurantism." Yet, he observes, attitudes about the polio programme "appear to vary substantially within small geographic areas. Rather than being a matter of common belief, public orientation appears to be shaped by a combination of religio-cultural and more localised socio-economic and political factors - in particular, the potentially aggressive nature of mass vaccination, and the perceived under-supply of other development goods." The full paper is available by subscription only.
  

• Debunking Handbook, by John Cook, Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, and Stephan Lewandowsky, School of Psychology, University of Western Australia. "Debunking myths is problematic. Unless great care is taken, any effort to debunk misinformation can inadvertently reinforce the very myths one seeks to correct. To avoid these 'backfire effects', an effective debunking requires three major elements. First, the refutation must focus on core facts rather than the myth to avoid the misinformation becoming more familiar. Second, any mention of a myth should be preceded by explicit warnings to notify the reader that the upcoming information is false. Finally, the refutation should include an alternative explanation that accounts for important qualities in the original misinformation." Here's an excellent review and summary of the book.
  

• When anecdotes, testimonials & urban legends are used to counter science -e.g. in public health initiatives. Offers advice on how to How to recognise this tactic and lots of examples of it happening, particularly in mass media. It doesn't offer concrete steps on how to address it, but it does help you understand it more, and the examples might be good to use in a training of public health care workers and others.
  

• "Why Do Many Reasonable People Doubt Science?" An article from National Geographic that does an outstanding job of explaining why people trust their gut or what they hear from friends rather than science.  "Even when we intellectually accept these precepts of science, we subconsciously cling to our intuitions... as we become scientifically literate, we repress our naive beliefs but never eliminate them entirely. They lurk in our brains, chirping at us as we try to make sense of the world. Most of us do that by relying on personal experience and anecdotes, on stories rather than statistics."
  

• "Why Facts Don’t Change Our Minds New," a review in The New Yorker about discoveries about the human mind that show the limitations of reason in changing minds, as detailed in three books: The Enigma of Reason, The Knowledge Illusion and Denying to the Grave.
  

• "Researchers have 3 tips to help journalists debunk misinformation," an article that summarizes research by Brendan Nyhan, a professor at Dartmouth, and Jason Reifler, a lecturer at the University of Exeter, called "Which Corrections Work," about specific advice for how journalists can best correct misinformation. That advice is coupled with related experiments they conducted to reinforce the tips. October 2013.
  

• "The Backfire Effect: The Psychology of Why We Have a Hard Time Changing Our Minds," a review by Maria Popova of Brain Pickings regarding the book You Are Now Less Dumb: How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself by David McRaney.
  

• Pseudoscience and conspiracy theory are not victimless crimes against science. "What’s the harm in applying alternative medicine to treat cancer? Why should others care if I don’t vaccinate my children? Such decisions are all too often based on a poor understanding of how science works – and usually guided by someone’s commercial interest... When some people are taken as 'authorities' and their claims, however wacky, believed, then the subsequent decisions that millions of people may take could harm them or even bring a premature end to their lives."
  

• On the reception and detection of pseudo-profound bullshit, a paper by Gordon Pennycook, James Allan Cheyne, Nathaniel Barr, Derek J. Koehler, and Jonathan A. Fugelsang, looks at how people will believe "seemingly impressive assertions that are presented as true and meaningful but are actually vacuous." In the study, research participants were presented with pseudo-profound bullshit statements consisting of buzzwords randomly organized into statements with syntactic structure but no discernible meaning (e.g., “Wholeness quiets infinite phenomena”). Across multiple studies, the propensity to judge these statements as profound was associated with a variety of conceptually relevant variables (e.g., intuitive cognitive style, supernatural belief). "These results support the idea that some people are more receptive to this type of bullshit and that detecting it is not merely a matter of indiscriminate skepticism but rather a discernment of deceptive vagueness in otherwise impressive sounding claims. Our results also suggest that a bias toward accepting statements as true may be an important component of pseudo-profound bullshit receptivity."
  

• The death of a teen in 2008 in Ukraine was wrongly blamed on his vaccination for measles and rubella, emboldening anti-vaccine activists who stoked the public with misinformation and social media. Parents lost confidence and vaccination rates plummeted. A coalition of corrupt importers were also pocketing exorbitant markups for medicines, and when UNICEF initiated international procurement in response, the companies countered the threat to their lucrative schemes with waves of misinformation aimed at confusing parents, dividing Ukraine's own institutions of health governance, and keeping the international community at bay. UNICEF, WHO, Rotary and others, working with Ukraine health ministry allies, have worked hard to successfully counter vaccine misinformation, and as of 2017, they are making great progress. More in this brief article on the Communication Initiative web site. 
  

• "5 tips for verifying citizen footage that every journalist should know," by Madeleine Bair for Muckrack.com.
  

• Newsrooms Building Online Tools Skeptics Can Use
  "We need online tools against bunk now more than ever. With the rise of social media (Twitter, Facebook et al.) there is an ever increasing ability for falsehoods such as rumors, hoaxes and misinformation to spread rapidly online. Many of these relate to news or political issues that may not directly concern some skeptics... Facing a huge load of work, these fact checkers have adopted new electronic methods including online research, custom software and crowdsourcing. At the same time, the newspaper industry has been looking for ways to evolve their business to replace the loss of traditional revenue and adapt to the digital world."
  

• Training for journalists (and anyone) on spotting misinformation, from First Draft
  These online courses, toolkits and resources are designed to help both journalists and the public build expertise and stay one step ahead of misinformation. From First Draft. There is an Essential Guides book series for journalists reporting on misinformation, a tool for you to test your online sleuthing skills with the First Draft verification challenge, learn more about mobile-friendly verification and monitoring tools and more.
  

• Health Literacy From A to Z: Practical Ways to Communicate Your Health Message, by Helen Osborne. This has used as a textbook in Seminar in Health Literacy at Tufts University School of Medicine. "Learn the key principles and strategies of effective health communication presented in a simple, informal manner by one of the nation’s leading experts in health literacy...Whether you are a physician, nurse, pharmacist, allied health professional, case manager, public health specialist, practice manager, health care educator, student or family caregiver this book is for you." This book won the 2012 New England Chapter of the American Medical Writers Association Will Solimene Award for Excellence in Medical Communication. It includes a sample syllabus and slide presentations.
  

• The Digital Resource Center, part of Center for News Literacy at the Stony Brook University School of Journalism, offers the material from its 14-week News Literacy course for free, online. Each lesson - slide presentations, associated media, lecture notes and recitation materials - stands alone and can easily be integrated into your own program.
  

• The University of Bristol School of Experimental Psychology has a list of faculty at various institutions they consider to be global experts on debunking of misinformation. The portal provides contact details of researchers from across multiple disciplines who are experts on social media and internet, debunking of misinformation, conspiracy theories, lack of trust science communication and science denial. At the time this item is being added to my list, it has 77 people listed on it. 
  

• Presentations at the Technical Advisory Group meeting on Communication for Polio Eradication in Nigeria, Niger and Congo, by UNICEF and ministries of health for different countries, Harare, November 2006

• Presentations at the UNICEF Afghanistan polio communication review meeting in Kabul, September 25 - 27, 2007

• Radio Australia interview with Kym Smithies of the UNDP mission in East Timor

• Essays by Etherton, M. , Ganguly, S. (2004) and Marlin-Curiel, S. in Theatre and Empowerment: Community Drama on the World Stage, Boon, R. and Plastow, J. (eds.), University of Leeds.

• "Health Care Debate Based on Total Lack of Logic", by Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience.com

• "U.S. Team in Baghdad Fights a Persistent Enemy: Rumors" by Thom Shanker, March 23, 2004, The New York Times

• CNN story, Liberia tries pop song, billboards to calm census fears, from March 20, 2008.

• Facilitators to aid anti-polio campaign in Tribal Areas (in Afghanistan), from the Daily Times, January 16, 2009

• Informal interviews by the author with various aid workers

• First-hand experience by the author, Jayne Cravens

(if a URL no longer works, try searching for the title on Google, or look at the source code for this page and cut and paste the desired URL into Archive.org)

Also see:

A website that verifies or dispels some of the Internet’s most pervasive rumors about ANY subject: Emergent.info, founded by researcher Craig Silverman of Columbia University’s Tow Center for Digital Journalism. "It presents real rumors and real data about them in a visual format that hopefully helps communicate how a given claim is evolving, and whether media reports confirm, deny or merely report the claim. After enough evidence emerges one way or another, we mark the claim as either true or false."

Verification Handbook: A Definitive Guide to Verifying Digital Content for Emergency Coverage "In a crisis situation, social networks are overloaded with situational updates, calls for relief, reports of new developments, and rescue information. Reporting the right information is often critical in shaping responses from the public and relief workers; it can literally be a matter of life or death." Authored by journalists from the BBC, Storyful, ABC, Digital First Media, and other verification experts, this is a resource for journalists and aid providers that offers tools, techniques, and step-by-step guidelines for how to deal with user-generated content (UGC) during emergencies. Noting that rumours and misinformation can cause people to invent and repeat questionable information in emergency situations due to uncertainty and anxiety - now amplified due to new technology like social media - the resource provides best practice advice on how to verify and use information provided by the crowd, as well as actionable advice to facilitate disaster preparedness in newsrooms. Case studies are included; for example: "Separating Rumor From Fact in a Nigerian Conflict Zone".

Towards Polio Communication Indicators: A Discussion Document, February 2008 from The Communication Initiative (scroll down the page to download the document; the summary doesn't really capture the important points of this document, IMO).

The Debunking Handbook, a guide to debunking myths, by John Cook and Stephan Lewandowsky. This is a summary of various research literature, offering practical guidelines on the most effective ways of reducing the influence of misinformation. The Handbook will be available as a free, downloadable PDF at the end of its 6-part blog series (which is still underway as of November 2011).

Logical Fallacies and the Art of Debate. This is actually a web page for competitive debaters. But its explanation of logical fallacies is the best I've found anywhere, and those ways of arguing a point are something public health educators and other communicators should understand!

Building Trust in Media in South East Europe and Turkey. Together with partners and with financial support from the European Union, this UNESCO project "seeks to strengthen freedom of expression, access to information, free, independent and pluralistic media, ensuring that journalists and media are key drivers for democratic, sustainable and peaceful development in the region." The project is being implemented in Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey, as well as in Kosovo. The project is focused on (1) Reinforcing national media accountability mechanisms, (2) Increasing media internal governance and (3) Strengthening Media and Information Literacy. The project is meant to last 1 January 2016 through 31 December 2018 - if the website disappears, type the URL into archive.org. The tag used on social media for this initiative is #TrustinMediaSEE. Associated Twitter accounts are @MILCLICKS and @MILCLICKSsee.

WikiWash, a more attractive interface to the revision history feature of Wikipedia. News events are often recorded quite quickly in Wikipedia articles, but these rapid edits can be a source of bias or spin if not scrutinized. WikiWash allows easy WYSIWIG browsing of recent edits to any article to make such scrutiny easier.

Rumor Psychology: Social and Organizational Approaches by Nicholas DiFonzo. The contributing authors "investigate how rumours start and spread, the accuracy of different types of rumour, and how rumours can be controlled, particularly given their propagation across media outlets and within organisations." I confess I haven't read this, but based on what is summarized online, I can't imagine it isn't a good resource for further exploring this issue.

"Rumors and Realities: Making Sense of HIV/AIDS Conspiracy Narratives and Contemporary Legends". By Jacob Heller. American Journal of Public Health: January 2015, Vol. 105, No. 1, pp. e43-e50. I confess I haven't read this, as it is behind a pay wall, but the abstract indicates it is a good resource for further exploring this issue.

Rumor Mills: The Social Impact of Rumor and Legend (Social Problems and Social Issues), a book edited by by Chip Heath, Veronique Campion-Vincent, and Gary A. Fin, includes this chapter: "How Rumor Begets Rumor: Collective Memory, Ethnic Conflict, and Reproductive Rumors in Cameroon." Again, I confess I haven't read this, but based on what is summarized online, I can't imagine it isn't a good resource for further exploring this issue.

Lesson plan about recognizing fake news. It's from KQED, a public radio and TV station in the San Francisco, California area. "Students will analyze the problems and potential consequences associated with the spread of fake news." and "Students will identify and evaluate ways to avoid fake news in social and academic settings. "

Doctors have decades of experience fighting “fake news.” Here’s how they win. Some lessons from the health community’s long battle with misinformation. Terrific, very practical advice, with examples of where it's worked. 

What I'm also wondering: are their any efforts in developing and transitional countries similar to the myth-busting Straight Dope column by Cecil Adams in the USA? Or truthorfiction.com? Or hoax-slayer.com? Or MythBusters? Or Adam Ruins Everything? If you know of such, please contact me.

Even more reading

Wikipedia actually has some good pages that provide an overview of these and related subjects:

• Behavior change - public health
• Behavior change communication
• Social marketing
• Nudge theory
• Impression management
• Belief perseverance
• Conspiracy_effect
• Woozle effect
• Denialism
• Truthiness

Back to the first page of this resource on preventing misinformation from interfering with development and aid initiatives.

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