Disinformation
Disinformation research
Where a false story comes from, how it travels, and why people pass it on.
Refuting false stories one at a time leaves the narrative that produced them untouched. In our study of the 2017 French presidential election, people passed on stories they understood to be false, because the stories answered an emotional need.
We map the sources a conversation draws on, the narratives that move between them and the way people share them. That shows which communities a story reaches, which tactics carry it, and what it does for the people who repeat it.
Where we start
Questions we are brought
- Which sources does this narrative come from, and who amplifies it?
- Is there foreign influence in those sources, and how far does it reach?
- Which tactics are in use: borrowed credibility, recycled news, fake polls, cloned sites?
- Why does debunking not work on this audience?
- Which communities never see each other’s version of events?
Human analysts read the material. The Reading Machine holds the whole conversation at once, so nothing is left out because it did not look interesting. Interpretation stays with the researcher. How the work is done
Our research
What we found when we listened
Two ways to work with us
- The Full Social Truth Study
- Discovery through measurement, led by the Bakamo team. A written report, a presentation to your team, the discovery architecture and the full quantitative dataset.
- Better Surveys for Your Team
- The discovery phase only, delivered as an instrument-design input for your in-house or agency quant work.