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The Disinformation Games

Your safe space for games and challenges related to misinformation and disinformation!

Case study: Disaster reporting

Every time a disaster happens, an enormous amount of disinformation is disseminated in addition to objective and truthful information. This happens according to recurring patterns. In this case study we investigate what good journalism is, what types of disinformation are disseminated over and over again during disasters, why this happens and how we can recognize this disinformation.

Disaster reporting

Recommended for: higher secondary education students, university students, adult learners

Available building blocks: 5

Tags: disasters, conspiracy theories, disinformation, Notre Dame fire

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Difficulty level
All case studies were designed for learners in upper-secondary education, higher education and adult education.

Resources
As each building block of any case study comes with a different mix of resources, the difficulty level can be adjusted by:

  • controlling the mix of resources and taking out more difficult texts (e.g. scientific papers) and replacing them with more easily accessible language in videos or popular blogs;
  • controlling the number of resources to work with in a given training session;
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De Facto’s case studies are a product of multinational cooperation. You will notice that resources vary, sometimes significantly, across the different language versions. Being the common working language of the team, it is the English version of the case studies which is most complete, actual and elaborate. See this for yourself when you are choosing a topic to work on, and compare your own language version with the lead version in English. Feel free to combine resources and methods!

Tools
Check the De Facto’s page dedicated to digital tools which can help an educator to work with the case studies more effectively. Use of ICT tools can make a training session on disinformation more practical and engaging for learners.

Tips for educators

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Building block 1. Disaster reporting: what happens during and after a disaster occurs (short and long term)

Disasters are reported on official and recongnized news channels and on offical websites, and alsoon social media. In a first phase, there's the initial breaking news reporting and in a second phase the reporting on longer term. During the breaking news phase the reporting will be done by professional journalists and reporters (professional journalism), and also by eye witnesses, care givers, victims or just by witnesses by hearsay (citizen journalism). The line between sensation and information and between true and false information is thin and news will be spread at a fast pace. During the longer term phase, professionals and citizen will look for answers, and point out causes and causers. In this block the process of disaster reporting is discovered, explained and analyzed.

Building block 2. The case of the Notre Dame fire: process of reporting on disasters

Disasters are reported on official and recongnized news channels and on offical websites, and alsoon social media. In a first phase, there's the initial breaking news reporting and in a second phase the reporting on longer term. During the breaking news phase the reporting will be done by professional journalists and reporters (professional journalism), and also by eye witnesses, care givers, victims or just by witnesses by hearsay (citizen journalism). The line between sensation and information and between true and false information is thin and news will be spread at a fast pace. During the longer term phase, professionals and citizen will look for answers, and point out causes and causers. In this block the process of the Notre-Dame disaster reporting is discovered, explained and analyzed.

Building block 3. The case of the Notre Dame Fire: the hoaxes and misinformation

When a disaster that affect a large group of people, a community or a country happens, a process of spreading of mis- and disinformation starts immediately. In this block we dig deeper into the way this process started during the Notre Dame fire, what media types and social media were used, who was behind it and where the false content, images, videos came from.

Building block 4. The case of the Notre Dame Fire: how and why is mis- and disinformation produced and spread

Why is mis- and disinformation produced and spread during and in the afttermath of a disaster? Who benefits and makes a profit from it? In this block we will discover and deduct the reasons and the system behind producing and spreading disinformation on the Notre Dame fire.

Building block 5. The case of the Notre Dame: critical, well-considered and media-wise analysis of disaster reporting

When a disaster happens, everyone wants to get answers to the questions what, why, how, where and who is involved in the disaster. In this block the focus is on fasle information detection and finding reliable information: which websites report objective and reliable reports of a disaster and how can the authenticity of these websites be checked. In case of doubt, we will learn how to use fact checkers, inverse image searches and how to detect false profiles, based on the Notre Dame fire. In a final assignment each student will analyze a specific case of disaster reporting and the producing and spreading of mis- and disinformation.

Warning

You have selected a topic from the Disinformation Games area. Please be advised that this area hosts, or links to, resources that contain misinformation or disinformation. The presence of such materials is to assist in developing and sustaining skills for navigating and detecting disinformation. To achieve this goal – and with clear intent – none of the materials are explicitly marked as true or not true.