NARRATIVES AND MISINFORMATION

 One of the basic definitions of misinformation is that it is “false information intended to manipulate “(Information Disorder, Wardle and Derakshan, pg. 20-22). According to the authors, the key peculiarity of disinformation is “the intention to manipulate and cause a certain effect by publishing inaccurate information”, which we can call “disinformation”. Contrary to false information, “misinformation” should be distinguished as “false information, but without the intention of manipulation”.

The article on the fake website of the newspaper Le Soir that Emanuel Macron was financed by Saudi Arabia, or the article that the president of France had bank accounts in the Bahamas were later confirmed as examples of disinformation. Against this, speculation that in the terrorist attack in Paris in 2017 more police officers were killed, which were published in the media, serve as examples of misinformation. In Macedonia such was the case with the news of November 2018 that “the former Prime Minister Gruevski fled illegally in women’s clothes across the border”. Here, in fact, it is a matter of misinformation derived from a bad interpretation of a statement by Academician Vlado Kambovski.

The distinction between false information (disinformation) and misinformation is particularly important because it determines not only the motive for publishing inaccurate information, but also often determines the complexity of inaccurate information. Disinformation is a designed manipulation and has a greater potential to cause harm and confusion. For them, we can say that they are “forged information” with planned and created details that should help expand and achieve its intended purpose.

Disinformation is most effective when it is concealed behind other correct information, and served like that they can be more easily accepted as reliable. Often in the case of important events, such as during protests, false information is inserted into the correct information that gives the news a new meaning and interpretation. During the French protests in 2005, many media reported a fake map of where the protests were spreading. Disinformation about the volume and number of protests is one of the most common examples of manipulative infiltration of misinformation in the news. 

Disinformation can also be hidden and inserted in other ways, or be hidden behind other components of the text.

Thus, disinformation can be inserted within a certain narrative which makes it easier for them to be accepted as accurate information. The narrative is a common narrative or a narrative way (story, display, interpretation) of a real or fictional topic. Media information usually fits into journalistic narratives, and they are predetermined by political, cultural, economic, ideological, religious and other factors and interests. Disinformation is much easier to insert when the news fits into a certain extended narrative.

For example, information on a criminal case involving migrants will receive a different meaning and interpretation depending on which narrative the reader is inclined to:

а) migrants are bad for our society

б) migrants are good for our society

в) migrants are neither bad nor good for our society (depends on the particular case)

Depending on which narrative the reader is inclined to, the case can be interpreted as a case that reflects the criminal motives of migrants as a whole or as an isolated criminal case. In order to fit in with the narrative, information can be easily twisted (spin), or misinformation based on fabrications, assumptions or speculations can be inserted in the narrative. In such cases, the established narrative used by the media can serve as an umbrella that covers disinformation and gives them a constructed context and reliability.

The entire narrative can be reduced to one word, that is, by appropriate nominalization, to strengthen the narrative and the attitudes that it implies. In the aforementioned case, the exclusive use of the term migrant, in spite of the exclusive use of the term refugee, in the presence of (economic) migrants and (war) refugees, or (political) asylum seekers, directly establishes and strengthens the narrative. Also, the narrative also determines the other language forms, therefore, depending on the negative, the neutral or the positive narrative, the media report separately that the police; a) has caught migrants; or b) has found migrants/refugees.

Exactly these factors strongly influenced the news of the German government’s initiative to support people denied asylum, to facilitate their return to their countries, to be interpreted and distributed in the media as disinformation that “the German government will pay 3,000 euros to all migrants”. Through the news agency “Associated Press” (AP) this news was broadcast in a number of media, and then virally dispersed through the social networks. This case showed that rarely a medium can remain immune to such planned and coordinated manipulations.

A negative narrative can be easily used as a carrier of disinformation and accelerate their spread. This interaction of narratives and disinformation proves to be very harmful when informing online where the high speed of receiving information is often expressed. Visitors and users, relying on established narratives and expectations, minimize the information that they take through various “time-saving tactics and overview of as many news as possible”. Some of the usual habits are reading only news headlines and reviewing only photos or videos, and then, without checking the rest of the information or their context, make a quick conclusion or comment without looking at all relevant information or involved parties.

Media that have manipulative intentions skillfully use these habits and specifics in online information. Numerous examples are presented with various journalistic tactics, for example, where disinformation is placed in the title, while the text attached to the title contains accurate information. Also, disinformation can be placed in the form of a manipulative photography, while the textual part is composed of accurate information.

The combination of embedded disinformation and uncritical acceptance of negative narratives by the media are best illustrated in probably the most famous case of false news, the so-called. Pizzagate: a citizen of the state of North Carolina (USA) after finding out that “in a pizzeria in Washington, people close to Hillary Clinton are involved in organized pedophilia,” without much thought picked up his rifle, sat in a car and arrived to this existing pizzeria (Comet Ping Pong, Washington, USA) where he fired several bullets in the air and threatened his employees. After the attacker was detained by the police, the owner of the pizzeria and employees continued to receive threats based on the disinformation that was further spread through the social networks and through various extremist websites in the coming months.

Alvin Tofler in his book “Future Shock” in 1970 writes about “information gluttony, where a person will meet daily with a huge amount of verbal and visual disinformation, which can lead him to a state of total disorientation” (page 350- 354). This disoriented person becomes a very easy target for disinformers at a time when getting information is not a problem, but rather the problem is which information to choose and which information to trust. Today we need not only a conscious will for this danger, but persistence and continuous (self) education to not succumb to such information disorientation.

Sead Jigal,

25.6.2019

For „MOST“.