Engagement with Fact-Checking in Norway during the 2021 Election

The final speaker in this last Thursday session at the Future of Journalism 2023 conference is Steen Steensen, whose focus is on the impact of political fact-checking during the 2021 parliamentary election in Norway (as part of the Source Criticisms and Mediated Disinformation project, or SCAM). Fact-checking during election campaigns has emerged recently as an important practice, but there is not much impact on the reach and impact of such fact-checks – much of the research to date has focussed on the practices of fact-checkers instead.

Ordinary people are more likely to engage with and share fact-checks that are conclusive (true/false), and they predominantly share fact-checks that agree with their own views, and that enable them to present themselves in a positive light. This study worked with the Norwegian fact-checking organisation Faktisk, which is owned by a number of Norwegian media organisations; it has operated for a number of years, and published 24 election fact-checks in 2021, which it distributed via Facebook (where it is officially accredited). The project captured any references to these fact-checks in the Norwegian media.

Faktisk produces background context articles as well as text and video fact-checks. It tends to focus on the three most influential political parties in Norway, and all fact-checks published in the election rated the statements they checked as incorrect. Reactions, comments, and shares of its fact-check content on Facebook are quite limited (an average of only 158 reactions per post) – but such engagement is very unevenly distributed. Video fact-checks received less interaction than ordinary posts, unusually.

Fact-check shares on Facebook appeared to come mainly from opposing politicians instrumentalising such fact-checks; they are also referenced (mostly) or embedded (less frequently, except for wire services) by Norwegian media covering relevant topics, with each fact-check only receiving only two references or embeds on average, however. Such embedding does provide a wider distribution than Facebook alone, however.

Fact-checks might thus mainly stay within the political sphere, therefore, and are instrumentalised by opposing politicians; perhaps there is thus a need for fact-checked to become more directly engaged in generating audience reach.