A field’s dilemmas
Misinformation research has exploded. But scientists are still grappling with fundamental challenges.
By Kai Kupferschmidt | Science
This story was supported by the Pulitzer Center.
In the summer of 2009, Adam Berinsky had just published a book on U.S. attitudes to war and was ready to focus on something new. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology political scientist watched as debates on the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s health care legislation, devolved into talks of "death panels." Meanwhile, his mother-in-law was sending him emails questioning whether Obama was born in the United States. "I felt like, 'This is crazy. What is going on?!'" Berinsky says. It might be a "fun fringe thing," he thought, to study this type of misinformation, which few people were researching at the time. "I'll just spend a couple of years figuring out why do people believe this, then a couple of years developing strategies, and then move on," he recalls thinking.
Fifteen years later, Berinsky is still working on the topic—and he’s not alone. The number of research papers on misinformation has exploded in recent years, as psychologists, philosophers, and political and social scientists flood the nascent field to figure out how misinformation spreads, and what can be done about it. Like Berinsky, many have been spurred on after seeing how misinformation has contributed to political polarization and undermined trust in democratic institutions around the world, as well as threatened people’s health during the global pandemic.
And yet, despite the influx of money and scientists, Berinsky’s goal of figuring out solutions and moving on—or even clearly defining the problem—seems remote. "2009 Adam Berinsky was incredibly naïve," says 2024 Adam Berinsky. The issue has turned out to be much more complex and nuanced than "a few crazy stories," he says; instead, researchers are studying an entire information ecosystem—one in constant flux.
Amid a U.S. election season that has seen the rampant spread of misinformation, Science is taking a look at five of the biggest challenges the field faces in that search for answers. Read more...
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