Knowledge Work in Platform Fact-Checking Partnerships

Authors

  • Valérie Bélair-Gagnon University of Minnesota-Twin Cities
  • Rebekah Larsen Oslo Metropolitan University
  • Lucas Graves University of Wisconsin-Madison
  • Oscar Westlund University of Gothenburg and Oslo Metropolitan University

Keywords:

platform, fact-check, journalism, partnerships, collaboration, cooperation, misinformation

Abstract

This article explores how platforms, news publishers, and fact-checkers describe the trade-offs they make in partnerships to counter misinformation. Using 54 interviews with these actors active in the global fact-checking field, it shows that resources and news values constitute key aspects of these partnerships. They contribute to knowledge shaping of what it means to fight misinformation (e.g., focusing on debunking, resource-allocation inequalities), and what types of misinformation matter for the public. This study highlights two kinds of problems in the growing anti-misinformation field, namely, coordination (technical, as to how to integrate different efforts by multiple actors) and cooperation (different organizations have different goals).

Author Biographies

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities

Valérie Bélair-Gagnon is Associate Professor and Coles Fellow in Media Management at the Hubbard School of Journalism & Mass Communication and McKnight Presidential Fellow at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities. She is the author of academic and policy publications in the business of media and emerging technology. She uses qualitative methods and hybrid methodologies and theories at the intersection of the sociology of work/organizations and journalism studies. She is the author of The Paradox of Connection (Illinois University Press, forthcoming, with Diana Bossio, Logan Molyneux and Avery Holton), Journalism Research that Matters (Oxford University Press, 2021, with Nikki Usher), and Social Media at BBC News (Routledge, 2015).

Rebekah Larsen, Oslo Metropolitan University

Rebekah Larsen is a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Journalism and Media at the Oslo Metropolitan University, and a Research Associate at Cambridge University’s Centre of Governance and Human Rights. She is working with an international, interdisciplinary team to understand how newsrooms approach misinformation around elections, particularly the US 2020 election. She recently, successfully defended my PhD in Sociology at the University of Cambridge (December 2020). She research and publishes about how information moves online–what influences knowledge creation and ‘news’ in the digital age. 

Lucas Graves, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Lucas Graves is an Associate Professor in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Journalism and Mass Communication. His research focuses on new organizations and practices in the emerging news ecosystem, and more broadly on the challenges digital networks pose to established media and political institutions. His book Deciding What’s True: The Rise of Political Fact-Checking in American Journalism came out in 2016 from Columbia University Press.

Oscar Westlund, University of Gothenburg and Oslo Metropolitan University

Oscar Westlund (PhD) is Professor at the Department of Journalism and Media Studies at Oslo Metropolitan University, where he co-leads the OsloMet Digital Journalism Research Group. He holds secondary appointment at University of Gothenburg. He specializes in digital journalism, fact-checking, platforms, media management, news consumption, and mobile media. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Digital Journalism, and has also guest edited special issues for numerous other leading international journals. He is currently involved in several research projects focusing on misinformation.

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Published

2023-01-29

Issue

Vol. 17 (2023)

Section

Articles

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