Desinformación Revelada

Disinformation is a complex and global problem that affects citizens who need reliable and timely information to make decisions in their daily lives. This phenomenon has not stopped intensifying in recent years: without going any further, in 2020 the World Health Organization declared, along with the pandemic, an infodemic, due to the damage that misinformation caused to public health at a global level. The harm disinformation causes in democracy has already become clear when the Oxford dictionary proposed that post-truth and fake news were the words of the year in 2016 and 2017. Just in the US, an estimate of 44.3% of Americans aged 18 or older visited an article on an untrustworthy website during the final weeks of the 2016 election campaign, according to a study published in Nature Human Behaviour (Guess A.M., 2020). 

The circulation of disinformation is not a novelty, but with the technological development of the last decades and the creation of new and diverse channels of communications, the way in which people get informed has changed and the consumption of news has become, in many cases, incidental. At present, citizens are hyper connected through their mobile devices with access to an immeasurable amount of information and content shared by their contacts and influencers. This unlimited information mixes true news with false news or news outside of context without citizens having the tools to identify them and stop them from becoming viral. This limits the opportunity of citizens to form their opinions and make informed decisions, affecting their ability to participate responsibly in democratic processes and in discussions of social relevance. Moreover, the last couple of weeks provided new concerns regarding the impact that AI developments could have in disinformation spread.

Despite the grim outlook, there is evidence that fact checking and Media and Information Literacy have positive results in slowing down this phenomenon. For example, a study conducted across an urban school district, showed that students grew significantly in their ability to judge the credibility of digital content after being exposed to online evaluation strategies drawn from research with professional fact checkers  (Wineburg, S., et al., 2022). Likewise, another study shows that students that were taught to use lateral reading were more likely to fact-check and correctly evaluate the trustworthiness of information (Brodsky, J. E. et al., 2021). Consequently, this project proposes to generate greater knowledge about the dangers of disinformation among citizens and provide some necessary tools to identify and mitigate its impact. 

We will develop an interactive and itinerant module to raise citizen’s awareness of the phenomenon of disinformation and its dangers. This module will be similar to the structure of a transparent photo booth where visitors to cultural and educational spaces, such as museums, book fairs, festivals, parks, schools and places of non-formal education will have the experience of "revealing" dis-misinformation. In Spanish, “revelar” can be used both for “revealing or unveiling disinformation”, and for “develop a photo”- it’s a wordplay. For 5 minutes, children, young people, adults and the elderly will be able to go through an inquiry based and problem based learning experience to identify disinformation as a problem, recognize the damage it causes in individual and collective life and learn some tools to identify false and misleading content circulating on social networks and media. 

Participants will be invited to play a game to interact and participate as active subjects putting critical thinking and the body into action. On the other hand, the exhibition will be traveling to generate an impact in various geographical spaces (municipalities, provinces and countries) and contexts (museums, festivals, schools, libraries, etc.), supporting a federal view of education and, even, being able to generate an international scope.

The traveling exhibition will include physical and digital resources - through a screen that will be located inside the booth - from which users will be presented with examples based on misinforming real events on various topics of general interest, such as, health, science, elections, gender or environment. Through various strategies that will be available in the form of options, users will have to reveal whether a content is true or false. They will walk through concepts and tools (image search, lateral reading, context analysis, how to identify a trusted source, AI-generated images, among others) that will help them make the final verdict. Once the disinformation has been revealed, users will be able to see specific information about that disinformation that they had to analyze, for example, data about its viralization or specific damage to create awareness. 

Participants will be able to participate individually or in groups, and the model will have accessibility for people with reduced mobility. The module will be self-administered but we will also include in the agreement with the institutions that will house the exhibit, the possibility of giving training for guides that will accompany the experience. The entire impact of the project will be systematized on a landing page.

The main beneficiaries of the project will be citizens who, through a playful and immersive experience, will acquire knowledge and tools to understand what misinformation and disinformation are and how it works, become aware of the individual and collective damage it generates, and learn strategies to identify and reduce its circulation. With this project, considering the volume of visitors to the main museums identified and the possibility that they enter in groups of 4, we hope to reach a total number of 100,000 beneficiaries in 1 year.

The institutions in which the module is located (interactive museums, fairs, cultural or educational spaces) will also benefit, as they will expand their offer to visitors and familiarize themselves with the phenomenon of disinformation and the strategies to mitigate it.

Since 2014, the Chequeado Education Program has led ongoing training projects for journalists, students, and communicators in Latin America and the Caribbean. It has also developed several projects and resources especially aimed at those communities that are especially unprotected to disinformation, such as indigenous population, the elderly or vulnerable youth. 

To do this, it produces innovative content and resources - such as civic applications and technological developments - experiments with various formats, and develops educational research and training actions on a small and large scale to promote the training on fact-checking tools in journalists and the promotion of Media and Information Literacy (MIL) of citizens, with focus on adolescents, as a strategy to reduce misinformation and improve public debate. In addition, the Education Program works with a community of more than 1,500 teachers and so far, it has impacted more than 25,000 adolescents in 2021 alone, half in public schools, and 20% in rural areas. 

The Education Program has also scaled its impact regionally, thanks to Chequeado’s leadership in the LatamChequea network, which brings together more that 35 fact-checking organizations from 18 countries in Latin America. The team has mentored and accompanied other fact-checking organizations in the region to develop their own Education programs. In addition, in 2021 the program launched the "Latin American Network of Fact Checking Trainers", which seeks to help other fact checking organizations and universities in the region to strengthen and expand their teaching about fact-checking and misinformation. 

Within this framework, the organization has promoted very successful experiences such as Los Juegos de Chequeado, where five local investigations were transformed into games that were exhibited in the parks of different cities during May 2017. Also in 2021, Chequeado developed La Sala de Escape, a virtual game where the player has to go through the resolution of a series of riddles, which represent the different steps of the fact-checking method our newsroom uses everyday to verify if a content that circulates in networks is true or not. Additionally, it has developed training and produced resources for teachers, such as the MOOC "Learning and teaching about the pandemic: strategies for the classroom".

Along the same lines, the Education Program has designed didactic sequences to carry out activities in both primary and secondary schools, such as infodemics or  "Electoral misinformation and young vote" with a focus on Latin America and the Caribbean.

They have also worked directly with students, through five editions of “Chequeado+: the future of the debate”, which had the participation of more than 10,000 students nationwide and promoted critical analysis of student speeches within the framework of the models of United Nations. This initiative was later on implemented in South Africa, in partnership with Africa Check. Likewise, we have developed the initiative "Public speech: a love story", a transmedia activity for high school students which emphasizes the importance of verifying the public debate. 

We have already developed and validated our concept with the population target, through evaluations and surveys. We are currently finishing to develop our technology, the user-experience and the physical product itself in order to launch our initiative into the market. 

For our project, we are seeking support in different areas. First of all, we need access to funding and investment opportunities that will help us to overcome the prototype phase, develop the product and transfer it to the different exhibition spaces. In addition, we would benefit from mentorship and coaching from entrepreneurs and innovators that have developed interactive games for citizens in the past and that could guide us regarding user-experience, the best way to present the content of our model, how to engage citizens and have the greatest impact possible. It would also be helpful to receive support to establish meaningful partnerships and networks for scaling the project at an international level. We are determined to take our interactive model to other countries and regions of the world. In this sense, it would be also interesting to have some advice regarding cultural barriers and legal and technical support. 

First, we consider that the project is innovative since, to our knowledge, there are no similar modules or exhibits in the world, much less playful and interactive museographic exhibitions that address the phenomenon and the dangers of mis and disinformation in Spanish aimed at citizens. Second, we believe that the development of the initiative in a problem based and inquiry based itinerant format and its subsequent placement in various spaces and places is an innovative strategy for raising awareness and placing the issue on the public agenda in a fast and effective way. By focusing on the visitor experience, we will appeal to people's memorability to generate impact and awareness, while also presenting a problem and the necessary tools to mitigate it. 

In the first year of the "Desinformación Revelada" project, our goals are to reach 100,000 individuals and circulate it in various institutions such as museums, cultural centers, science centers, parks, and schools. We will conduct quantitative and qualitative evaluations to assess visitor feedback, institutional partnerships, perception of misinformation as a problem, and learning outcomes. Based on these evaluations, we will make necessary improvements and adjustments to the module.

Over the next five years, our goals include collaborating with organizations in other countries to develop culturally relevant modules that address regional challenges related to misinformation. We will foster international collaborations and partnerships for knowledge exchange, leveraging diverse cultural perspectives. Our aim is to expand the project's impact globally, reaching audiences worldwide. We will develop a network of culturally diverse modules that address global misinformation challenges. Comprehensive quantitative and qualitative evaluations will be conducted to measure impact, including visitor participation, engagement perception of misinformation and disinformation as a problem, and learning outcomes about tools for identify false and misleading content. Throughout the project, we will continuously improve and adapt the modules based on evaluation results. We aim to reach at least 750000 individuals within 5 years. 

Number of participants in the exhibit, including indicators about gender and age

Number and type of institutions placing the exhibit

Cities and countries placing the exhibit

Feedback from the participants

Feedback from the institutions placing the exhibit

Learning outcomes from the participants regarding their consciousness about disinformation and its damages, and their ability to identify false content

Ultimate Outcomes:

1. Increased public recognition of the impact of mis and disinformation on individual and collective decision-making in society, including health, the environment, and democratic systems.

2. Empowered participants equipped with digital tools and critical thinking strategies to identify and counter false information across various topics and formats.

Mediating Processes:

1. Experiencing Real-Life Impact: Participants engage in brief, immersive experiences and dialogues centered around real stories where misinformation and disinformation had profound effects on people's lives and communities.

2. Decision-Making and Problem-Based Learning: Participants make decisions to help the characters in these stories avoid falling victim to misinformation, thus mitigating potential risks.

3. Skill Development: Participants learn digital tools, recognize cognitive biases, and apply critical thinking skills through inquiry-based learning activities, facilitated by virtual guides or institution-provided guides.

Intervention Activities:

1. Interactive Exhibit Development: Create an interactive exhibit model to be displayed in museums and public spaces, offering hands-on learning experiences to teach the general public skills to identify and counter disinformation.

2. Partnership Collaborations: Establish partnerships with various institutions to host and promote the exhibit in both rural and urban public places, ensuring accessibility to diverse audiences.

3. Problem-Based and Inquiry-Based Learning: Design engaging experiences that incorporate problem-based learning, where participants actively solve challenges related to misinformation, and inquiry-based learning activities that foster critical thinking skills.

4. Evaluation and Feedback: Conduct continuous evaluations to gather participant feedback, measure knowledge acquisition, and assess the effectiveness of the exhibit and learning activities.

Through these intervention activities, the project aims to achieve the ultimate outcomes of increasing public recognition of misinformation's impact and empowering participants with the skills necessary to identify and counter false information. By immersing participants in impactful experiences, providing problem-based and inquiry-based learning opportunities, and fostering critical thinking skills, the project seeks to contribute to a better informed and society.

Our project is based on the production of a fourth generation interactive museographic module which will include a touch screen and will implement different types of formats - such as video, animation, audio, etc - to present the content to citizens.

At Chequeado we are known for having a work approach based on equity, diversity and inclusion. Chequeado adheres to the IFCN Codes of Conduct, Articles 8 and 9 of which address diversity and harassment, and discrimination, respectively.

Members and employees who feel that their work environment does not comply with the above principles may bring their concerns to the attention of Human Resources and/or Paola Bergallo, a member of the Board of Directors and a lawyer specialist in gender issues. We have gender equality in our team, and regarding leadership positions, 3 of the 6 directors are women. Several members of Chequeado are proud members of the LGBTQ community. Likewise, we actively seek to incorporate a gender, inclusive and diverse perspective into all of our projects. We work especially identifying the different needs of the different target population groups, and we seek to make their problems visible. In addition, we have a strong eye on accessibility. We have developed projects in sign language, and projects linked to especially vulnerable groups such as the indigenous population, the LGBT population and the elderly. Particularly, in this project, we will adapt the interactive module to people with reduced mobility.