The Potential of Narrative Counters to Mis- and Disinformation

The final speaker in this ECREA PolCom 2023 conference session on alternative media is Pablo Porten-Cheé, whose focus is on countering misinformation with narratives. He begins with an example of the public discourse in Slovakia about the Roma community. Dominant, prejudiced views circulate, but are also countered by some engaged users – yet such correctives may not be particularly effective if they are only using facts and are directed at little-engaged audiences; responses that take a more personal and affective narrative approach may be more powerful.

How can this effect of personal stories be explained? The underlying theory here is narrative persuasion: people become immersed in the story and see the story through the eyes of the characters – they are transported into the story. Narrative counters may thus be used to respond to mis- and disinformation: and Pablo conducted a literature review of studies that have explored such narrative counters in addressing medical misbeliefs.

The results of such studies are mixed: narrative counters mostly worked, but usually only when source cues were also considered; the broader narrative context of these studies also varied widely. Studies also noted that in real-world practice, narrative counters are usually provided by ordinary users; a focus on organised campaign interventions may therefore be misguided, and narrative counters by ordinary users should be studied further instead.