Silencing the False: A Battle for Reality

You might check online what the truth is when you doubt something. But what if everyone around you is telling you the same thing, but that’s not the fact?

“Misinformation, disinformation and fake news have become serious problems on the social media platforms and websites, particularly following the socio-political and public health crises of 2019,” said Professor Celine Song from the HKBU School of Communication, a key researcher participating in a large-scale interdisciplinary project named “Fake News and the Spread of Online Misinformation in Hong Kong: Perception, Identification and Intervention”. 

Interdisciplinary Makes the Difference 

Professor Song conceived the idea for this research project when she was a visiting associate professor at Cornell University from 2019 to 2020, coinciding precisely with the crises unfolding in Hong Kong. Motivated by a hybrid approach to countering information disorder problems, with her research partly focused on the intersection of social media analytics and journalism, she initiated this project by collaborating with her colleagues in her School and the HKBU Department of Computer Science.

As interdisciplinary as Professor Song herself, the project involved scholars and practitioners in journalism, social media experts and computer science professionals in misinformation detection. “Research in this field usually employs either a social science or a computer science approach, yet neither approach by itself is sufficient to completely tackle the misinformation issue,” stressed Professor Song. Her research team devised a comprehensive approach that blended advanced techniques, including deep learning models with big data analytics. This innovative strategy was further enhanced by integrating traditional social science research methods, such as qualitative focus group interviews and quantitative social network analysis. Their aim was to delve into the profiles of individuals who congregate to discuss rumours regarding various crises, as well as to examine the dynamics of these discussions and their potential impacts.

The interdisciplinary project nature brought the research team an HKBU internal matching scheme, enabling them to carry out an in-depth investigation into the issue, which was beneficial to receiving the Public Policy Research Funding Scheme (PPRFS) 2021 for their associated project “Building Resilience to Information Disorder in Hong Kong: An Investigation of Rumor Exposure and Dissemination in Times of Public Crisis”.

Uncovering Insights for Policy Impact

Their research works at multi-dimensions to provide recommendations for different stakeholders to deploy effective crisis responses. First, they adopted a hybrid approach to estimate the veracity of news circulating across different media platforms. They established a library of rumours and their correction messages, and used human-in-the-loop detection and characterisation of rumours and correction messages in online media, with fine-grained labels related to the crises.
 

Rumour tweets without corrections tend to spread more deeply and broadly, reaching a larger audience on Twitter. In contrast, tweets that include corrections generally remain more isolated.

Second, they explored how social media users responded to rumours and correction messages by mapping the topology of rumour and correction diffusion in media, and how fact-checkers and the public refuted misinformation online.

Third, they conducted semi-structured in-depth interviews with social media platform users, fact-checkers and journalists about their experiences and perceptions of online rumours and fake news, how they perceived their work during these crises and considered exploring feasible solutions for curbing the spread of online rumours. Last, they verified to what extent the correction messages were effective.

From Local Concept to Global Endeavour

The Project aims to understand the local fake news ecosystem and develop an effective Chinese fake news automatic diagnosis system, to empower policymakers, the news media and the public with socio-technical solutions for detecting misinformation on digital platforms related to the public crises, nurturing misinformation resilient behaviour and preventing the spread of online misinformation on a mass scale in Hong Kong. 

In 2022, Professor Song’s team hosted a pioneering two-day virtual conference titled “Checking the Fact-checkers – A Global Perspective”. This event featured international keynote speakers along with esteemed researchers and practitioners from institutions around the globe, including Harvard University, Ohio State University, Cornell University and AFP. After exchanging experiences and research evidence on combating misinformation and implementing effective corrections globally, they proposed a book that was accepted by Routledge, with its publication anticipated around June 2024.

Building Misinformation Defences

Professor Song hopes to enhance everyone’s literacy on social media and other news platforms with a comprehensive set of media literacy manuals in preparation, based on empirical evidence and their experimental findings. She encourages the public to expand the diversity of information sources and their (social) networks for a full picture of the truth, instead of what they and their networks believe to be true. Their social networks directly affect the type and extent of the information they are exposed to. Everyone should actively participate in fact-checking before spreading a message, to create a clean online environment. 

About the Researcher

Professor Celine Song's research cuts across global communication, digital media, computer-mediated networks, social media analytics, cyber-psychology and behaviour. With an extensive track record in pursuing interdisciplinary research, her scholarship has straddled English, French and Chinese cultures and media. She was a two-time recipient of the prestigious Fulbright Awards. Her research projects have been awarded a series of internal and external grants, including those from the Humanities and Social Sciences Prestigious Fellowship Scheme, General Research Fund, Quality Education Fund, Public Policy Research Fund, as well as an external grant from Ryerson University, Canada, and CONVERGE COVID-19 Working Group Award, USA. She was a visiting associate professor at Cornell University from 2019-2020.

 

She is the editor of Communication & Society (TSSCI) and the associate editor of Computers in Human Behavior (SSCI) and Mass Communication and Society (SSCI). She serves as the Award Chair of Chinese Communication Association (國際中華傳播學會). She is the Director of the Al and Media Research Lab and the Chair of the Research Postgraduate Committee in the School of Communication.