Stellenbosch University's Centre for Information Integrity in Africa (CINIA) has been awarded a grant of over R20m, which will enable it to strengthen information integrity in the Global South through the development of multidisciplinary partnerships.
Prof Herman Wasserman, Director of Stellenbosch University's Centre for Information Integrity in Africa
The grant, provided by the Canadian International Development Research Centre (IDRC), will support a three-year project to facilitate collaborations between various research organisations, practitioners and activists in Africa, the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), Latin America and Asia.
The project’s principal investigator is Prof Herman Wasserman, Director of CINIA. Wasserman will lead a team to coordinate projects on issues such as disinformation, media literacy, technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TGBV), and generative AI.
Information disorder
The project’s goal is to promote multidisciplinary and innovative research, stakeholder collaboration, policy advocacy, and capacity building. The project is motivated by the rapid changes in social media platforms in recent years that are posing profound implications for the integrity of the information ecosystem. Research is needed to understand the global dimensions of threats to this ecosystem, and the impacts on democratic resilience and development in particular.
What is becoming known as the information disorder is now commonplace – and is making it nearly impossible for ordinary people to know whether what they are reading online and in social media feeds are true or disinformation.
Mis- and disinformation together are reinforcing political, religious and ethnic polarisation, and fostering declining trust in independent media, gender-based harassment and discrimination. This increase in the inability to discern mis- and disinformation from impartial facts is happening at the very moment when disruptive technologies are proliferating, platform regulation and accountability is diminishing, and safety standards, content moderation and fact-checking are disappearing.
The lack of governance of the digital public sphere is linked to national interests and issues of freedom of expression, communication rights, media literacy and data sovereignty.
Social media discord
Media users’ ability to access impartial and factual information is only becoming more complex as the social media landscape is disrupted by dramatic political shifts, declining rule of law internationally, respect for governing the internet with fundamental principles and a general decline for international cooperation.
Social media platforms are now fertile ground for promoting prejudice and opposing equality, diversity and inclusion.
Wasserman explained the need for the project as follows: "Efforts by organisations, researchers, journalists, and activists to confront threats to information integrity are occurring in isolated silos, limiting interaction and knowledge-sharing across sectors and regions. This restricts finding comprehensive solutions and diminishes the likelihood of success of each intervention and policy response.
"To combat the spread of misinformation, disinformation, violence, and harassment, focused cross regional and cross-sectoral approaches are critically needed to foster greater coordination and coherence. This is required to increase the possibility of an online public sphere that supports information integrity based on facts and evidence, and safeguards democracy, social cohesion and safety."
