Misinformation and disinformation have a particular preference for your uncle's Whatsapp inbox. Digital and media literacy are concepts that travel infinitely slower than a picture saying that Coca-Cola contains cocaine.
Identifying misinformation and disinformation online can feel like a hopeless game of Whack-a-Mole, especially when it involves people we care about. False and harmful information is proliferating online at a rate that makes it impossible for even the most efficient fact-checking system to keep up, let alone individuals. While information ecosystems get more complex, with new technologies entering the field, it becomes harder to foster common understandings and constructive debates.

At Global Voice's Civic Media Observatory, we focus on questions of misinformation, disinformation, disruption, and confusion. Using narrative analysis, the Observatory highlights how items of information are connected by narratives and flow within and between networks. We don't aim at excluding ideas, as false as they can be, but acknowledging their existence and understanding how they are comprehended by others. Ultimately, we assess how disruptive and harmful content impacts civil society - and what are the strategies to mitigate it.

This workshop will introduce participants to Observatory methods, focusing on research conducted in Myanmar and Brazil. Discussion topics include: how deep reading and qualitative analysis complement quantitative ap