Lena Frischlich

The Limits of Analogies of Misinformation

“Contrary to misinformation, viruses care little about ingroup dynamics, political supplies, or the larger media context in which they spread.”

By @lenafrescamente.bsky.social, @abhishekr0y.bsky.social, @hdschulze.bsky.social

#AcademicSky #SocialPsyc 🧪

Overall, we hope that our framework provides a useful lense for studying misinformation and designing interventions and regulations by raising awareness for this complexity, by enabling the targeted discussion of side effects, & hopefully by inspiring further work! PS: you can read it #openaccess 🤓

Very often we study misinformation through analogies: Seeing it as virus ( #infodemic), a weapon ( #informationWarfare), or a toxin ( #informationPollution). We did an extensive mapping of these analogies mileages & baggage showing what complexities they sytematically overlook

The figure shows four times the same graph: A stacked image of four levels corresponding to the macro-level of societies, the meso-level II of digital platforms, the meso-level I of social groups, and the micro-level of individual media users. For each level, prototypical actors are mentioned (micro level: creator, spreader, recipient, counterspeaker, and bystander. Meso-level I, primary group, secondary group, category. Meso-level II chat-oriented social media, digital platforms, publication-oriented platforms, macro-level: politics, law, economy, media, education/ science).

We provide a new framework arguing that misinfo is complex: If we want to understand it, we need to account for prototypical actors and their interaction on the individual micro, social, and digital meso, and the country macro-level actors - as well as cross-level influences & feedback loops.

The complexity of misinformation extends beyond virus and warfare analogies npj Complexity - The complexity of misinformation extends beyond virus and warfare analogies

The result of this super cool work with Henrik Olsson, @abhishekr0y.bsky.social, @hdschulze.bsky.social, Stan Rhodes, and Alison Mansheim can now be found online - and we hope you like it as much as we do 😍https://www.nature.com/articles/s44260-025-00053-z- Core ideas also summarized below 🔽

#PublicationAlert 🥰. This one has been long in the making: It started with a @sfiscience.bsky.social workshop in 2023, lead to a working group at the SFI in 2024, multiple online-meetings (one from Costa Rica, Munich, Denmark, Mumbai, and the US), thought-provoking and truly interdisciplinary work.

Screenshot of the article “Open science in democracy research: the research infrastructure ‘Monitoring Electoral Democracy’ (MEDem)” published in European Political Science. The header shows the journal name, DOI link, and the label “DEBATE.” Below, the title is followed by the author list: Hajo Boomgaarden, Alexia Katsanidou, Sylvia Kritzinger, Georg Lutz, Johanna Willmann, and Jakob-Moritz Eberl. The abstract explains the aims of MEDem as a European research infrastructure to make democracy research data FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable, reusable). Keywords listed include open science, FAIR data, ESFRI roadmap, research infrastructure, democracy research, data harmonization, data linking, and data set search. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/s41304-025-00534-8

They say: once there’s a paper 📝, it’s real…
🎉 #MEDem in #EPS @ecpr.bsky.social

The paper outlines how MEDem will strengthen #OpenScience by making data #FAIR in #DemocracyResearch – and how scholars across Europe are joining forces to build a truly open #ResearchInfrastructure ⚙️

Laptop screen showing a view on a conference room with a wooden round table circle with chairs around it.

Very honored to speak today at the European Commissions #JCR meeting on disinformation about the work Larissa Leonhard, Ruth Wendt and I are doing with @liedetectors.bsky.social , studying how young media users respond to #medialiteracy training by Journalists at school - even if only online.

The “Debate Me Bro” Grift: How Trolls Weaponized The Marketplace Of Ideas Among the attempts to create hagiographic eulogies of Charlie Kirk, I’ve seen more than a few people suggest that Kirk should be respected for being willing to talk to “those who disagree with him”…

This is essential reading and perfectly explains why I will not share a stage with far-right grifters and enablers.

Of particular interest from @sabinebarthold.bsky.social & Richard Joos is their work on counter-swarms
www.weizenbaum-institut.de/media/Publik...

And finally @andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social and I talk about our project studying democratic resilience across the multiple levels on which misinformation dynamics unfold

a penguin wearing a wizard hat sits at a desk with a computer and the words let chatgpt do it ALT: a penguin wearing a wizard hat sits at a desk with a computer and the words let chatgpt do it

@lyngemoller.bsky.social presents the "AI in the news ecosystem - navigating trust and authenticity (AINATA)" project funded by @carlsbergfondet.dk and led by @claesdevreese.bsky.social. Over the next years, AINATA will look at news media, influencers, citizens trust and engagement in an age of AI.

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@rasmusschmokel.bsky.social presents his dissertation (2025). He advanced a socio-technical understanding of social media, (co-) developed a mock-up social media platform for @ddc-sdu.bsky.social, studied how user demand*algorithmic supply ▶️ inequalities, and tested public service algorithms.

Freja Sørine Adler presents the Safe ChilDe project - looking at misinformation in the lifeworld of children age 5-12. SafeChilDe combines ethnography with a survey, legal analyses and developing a game for children improving their #medialiteracy

The speaker, a young women, stands smiling in front of a laptop.

Anne Clausen presents the results of her 1st paper, a scoping review on the harrassment of LGBTQI+ - showing high dominance of studies on accessible data and from computer science. Lots of things to research :-)

a cartoon of the earth sitting at a table with a speech bubble that says " this is not fine " Alt: a cartoon of the earth sitting at a table with a speech bubble that says " this is not fine "

Giorgia Sampó discusses decentralized autonomous organisations (DAOs) for climate change mitigation. DAOs are based on blockchain and can enable people to have trustworthy contracts/ interactions while distributed. Giorgia studies what we know about DAOs, how they work, and how to understand them.

A wooden manekin with stripes to move its head and hands

The second day of the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social retreat starts with an update of the different projects at the DDC: Rasam Zamanifarahansi presents his dissertation on "Personal autonomy at the European Court of Human Rights" - studying how that links to people's rights for not being manipulated online.

(There might be some points regarding the roles that could be made a bit simpler, but the general idea was super funny)

You have to ask Maryam when she's back or text @andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social - maybe there are even materials to share 😉

Haha, it was hilarious- we got assigned roles (and real pos/neg reviews DDC members received) and had to make clever decision to further our prescribed motives (eg supporting reviewer 1 vs reviewer 2s own agenda) - a bit werewolf game style

Love this years social activity game - playing publish or perish - who's gonna be reviewer 2 😈

a little girl is making a funny face while wearing a blue shirt with a leopard print . ALT: a little girl is making a funny face while wearing a blue shirt with a leopard print .

It's still a bit of time till she starts - but the whole @ddc-sdu.bsky.social is very excited to have @jolukito.bsky.social joining us as a colleague in February and now on the retreat - giving an introduction into her fascinating work ( see for yourself scholar.google.com/citations?us...)

Three persons standing in front of the screen

The real heroes of academia are often people that are less often in the spotlight- such as @ddc-sdu.bsky.social finance magician Bettina - very glad that she could join the retreat and see all the project results that her work makes possible 😀

The speaker, a young women, stands in front of the screen, with pictures from Teheran, Vienna, and Denmark 🇩🇰

Absolutely fascinating talk by Maryam Khaleghipour - including with rich insights into how to study communication in Iran - and her very cool research on the targets of online attacks

a cartoon illustration of a globe with a face and the words hiiiiii written below it ALT: a cartoon illustration of a globe with a face and the words hiiiiii written below it

@ddc-sdu.bsky.social fellow Fabian Prochazka presents his project tackling journalists perceptions of what audiences think about the climate- and which role social media plays for misperceptions.

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@hannahdecker.bsky.social continues with insights into her prior research and her plans to understand how social media and personalization can actually benefit democracies (much needed positive focus 😀)

The speaker (a young man) stands in front of the screen saying HEJ!

@andre-k-rodarte.bsky.social gives a great introduction into his really coolwork on politics on social media at the @ddc-sdu.bsky.social retreat

New division chairs incoming!
#MePsych25 marked the end of the chair team's term. Huge thanks to @lenafrescamente.bsky.social(Chair), @stephanwinter.bsky.social(Vice Chair), @romohseni.bsky.social(Treasurer), @dpossler.bsky.social & @lunafrauhammer.bsky.social(ECR Representatives) for their work!

Slide with the definition of counterspeech as direct communication against to reduce harmful effects

Super interesting debate by Özen Odağ and Larisa Buhin on the promises and perils of counterspeech #MePsy25

Check out our Call for Papers on "Digital #Journalism in the Age of #Technogarchy", guest edited by @curdknupfer.bsky.social, @lenafrescamente.bsky.social, @claesdevreese.bsky.social, & @gehrke.bsky.social. The deadline for abstract submission is fast coming up, on 15 Sep!