Updated February 16, 2020
This page is part of a 11-part guide on preventing folklore, rumors
(or rumours), urban myths and organized misinformation campaigns from
interfering with development & aid/relief efforts, and government
initiatives regarding public health, the environment, etc.
It is not
a stand-alone page. It should be read as part of the entire guide.
This is the link to the introduction and
index for the other pages in this guide.
More Resources
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
- 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:
Back to the
first page of this resource on
preventing misinformation from interfering with development and aid
initiatives.
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