Disinformation, hoaxes, curation and verification: review of studies in Ibero-America 2017-2020

Abstract

Abstract The objective of this article is to carry out a review of disinformation research in the Ibero-American area between 2017 and 2020. To do this, American Psychological Association standards for social scientific reviews are followed and about 60 papers published in indexed journals in Ibero-America are analyzed, as well as published books on the subject. The results are shown grouped into three parts. First, the three fundamental concepts related to disinformation are reviewed: the term of disinformation itself, as well as post-truth and infodemic. Second, the main disinformation products are studied: fake news, information disorders and hoaxes, according to their types, themes, formats, and channels. In the third part, the main strategies against disinformation are presented, reviewing the published works of two of them: content curation and fact checking. The most notable authors, by quantity of research, on the subject are Magallón-Rosa with 6 works, Ufarte-Ruiz with 4 and García-Marín with 3 works. Likewise, the studies by Dolors Palau-Sampio (2018. Fact-checking y vigilancia del poder: La verificación del discurso público en los nuevos medios de América Latina [Fact-checking and surveillance of power: The verification of public discourse in Latin America’s new media]. Communication & Society 31(3). 347–365), Ángel Vizoso & Jorge Vázquez-Herrero (2019. Plataformas de fact checking en español. Características, organización y método [Fact checking platforms in Spanish. Characteristics, organization and method]. Communication & Society 32(1). 127–144), and Carlos Rodríguez-Pérez (2019. No diga fake news, di desinformación: Una revisión sobre el fenómeno de las noticias falsas y sus implicaciones [Don’t say fake news, say disinformation: A review of the fake news phenomenon and its implications]. Comunicación 40. 65–74), can be highlighted for their analysis of disinformation in the Ibero-American area; for their analysis of the typologies of hoaxes the work of Ramón Salaverría, Nataly Buslón, Fernando López-Pan, Bienvenido León, Ignacio López-Goñi & María-Carmen Erviti (2020. Desinformación en tiempos de pandemia: tipología de los bulos sobre la covid-19 [Disinformation in times of pandemic: Typology of Covid-19 hoaxes]. El profesional de la información 29(3). e290315) and for the proposals on curation the works of López-Borrull with collaborators. Conclusions include that the phenomenon of disinformation is highly polyhedral, but society has instruments to deal with it, such as curation and verification (fact checking).