Overview
Misinformation and disinformation (MDI) is a multifaceted problem that occurs in many forms and contexts. It is not only found on social media platforms, but also on messaging services, such as WhatsApp, or in the comment columns of high-quality online news portals. At the moment, the checking of content for MDI is done manually by users or employees of the social media platform, messaging service or news portal. The aim of this project is to identify characteristics of MDI.
Field reports and testimonials show that MDI often have the same characteristics in terms of language, images and formal aspects. MDI are often emotionalising with very positive or negative sentiment and strong emotional intensity. In addition, MDI posts or comments point to an explanatory gap in a topic and thus create a need for explanation not seldom accompanied by uncertainty. This need for an explanation is reflected, for example, in the use of questions, three dots analogous to "...", and/or abstract formulations.
