Research and Reports

NORDIS Research

During the second period of NORDIS the University of Bergen and Factiverse will develop tools to facilitate fact checking of generative AI.

The tools can both be used to detect and disclose AI-generated disinformation, deepfakes, and misleading audiovisual content. 

This work will build on tools developed in the first funding period of NORDIS by the University of Bergen and on products and prototypes that have already been developed by Factiverse.

To help address the challenge of generative AI at a European level, NORDIS will make all the results and tools available for the EDMO community when the second period of NORDIS ends.

The tools will additionally be tested in training courses of Nordic journalists. This activity will be led by FMI Media Institute.

The activities of the first funding period of NORDIS have resulted in several research reports by Aarhus University, Uppsala University, University of Helsinki and University of Bergen. The results can be accessed below.

The NORDIS fact-checking partners are Faktisk.no (NO), TjekDet (DK), Källkritikbyrån (SE), and Faktabaari (FI).

We are members of the European Digital Media Observatory (EDMO).

Latest research reports

Publications

Recently published research papers

Emotional landscapes of misinformation spread

In February 2020, only a month after the Covid-19 pandemic was declared, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the crisis was accompanied by an ‘infodemic’ of misinformation

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5 policy recommendations to improve state-of-affairs

Social media poses an everlasting challenge in academic research and, in extension hereof, our ability to understand the influences of social media on various aspects of today's societies and democracies

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Responsibility, legitimacy and harmful social media content

The report discusses content moderation from the perspective of powerful platform companies (YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, Tiktok, X/Twitter) in the context of increasing demands for accountability

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Verified false content in Europe on social media

As modern crises are accompanied by increasing amounts of misinformation and social media platforms are increasingly important for ensuring public acceptance of policies, it is more vital than ever to uncover who is exposed to misinformation, and what types of misinformation stories are spread.

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Audience experiences of media disinformation

This NORDIS study, co-funded by the C.V. Åkerlund Media Foundation, focuses on Nordic audiences’ experiences of media trust and experiences of disinformation, based on nationwide, representative surveys in Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden in May-June of 2023.

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Archive

Archived research publications

Recommendations of the Nordic Think Tank for Tech and Democracy

The Nordic countries share similar cultures and long-standing democratic values that provide an opportunity for strengthening our democracies even when they take increasingly place online. With this premise, the Nordic Think Tank for Tech and Democracy, set up by the Nordic Council of Ministers, met from April 2022 through April 2023 to discuss the effects of global platform power and the related responses needed to support the Nordic democracies.

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An analytical report on online information propagation: The methods to propagate stories, with case studies

Describes a new approach to study the diffusion of stories posted on media sites and shared on social media. A typical approach to study this is to look at the features of the individual social media posts including links to those stories, e.g. number of shares or sentiment of individual posts. We propose to organise social media content into coherent sets of posts and their relations (e.g. replies), that we call conversations, and look at the association between stories from different types of sources and features of the conversations where they have been shared.

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Assessing Information Disorder in the Digital Media Welfare State: A Rights-Based Approach

To provide NORDIS a baseline overview of the national contexts in the participating countries (Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden) and to design a framework for further research on policy and literacy analyses, this brief offers an overview of the Nordic digital media welfare states by combining secondary statistical data; 32 original expert interviews with fact-checkers, media literacy experts and policymakers; and an exploratory policy roundtable discussion. This material reveals a strong Nordic digital media welfare state...

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How to assess national resilience to online misinformation; cooperation with Digires

Based on an analysis of 30 comparative indicators of Finland and Lithuania, depicting sociopolitical context, media landscape, and media use, and reflecting the findings on some qualitative expert interviews conducted within the project, the brief recommends the adaptation of a complex understanding of national resilience to online disinformation: Not only are descriptive indicators central to understanding systemic factors of resilience but the concrete attitudes, values, and capacities of those executing actions to build resilience are central...

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Report on image verification tools

These deliverables aim at developing and improving fact-checker tools through the creation of tailor-made algorithms in multimedia forensics. The goal is to address specific problems in fact-checking and improve existing technologies, with a view to creating stand-alone prototypes that can be integrated into existing platforms. One such tool that has been developed is FotoVerifier, a platform that supports multiple image verification algorithms and takes into account human-in-the-loop and digital media literacy.

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A method for auditing fact-checking databases

The influence of digital media has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic and with it the focus on online misinformation. Misinformation related to the pandemic can have consequences for the health of the population and for adherence to government measures. Therefore, fact-checking organizations have investigated stories that potentially spread misinformation and published their investigations online, with the goal to curb the negative impact of misinformation on society.

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Predicting covid-related collective anxiety on social media

The Covid-19 pandemic- with all its many challenges- has allowed for unprecedented studies of public emotions in times of crisis using social media data to take the pulse of the population’s emotions. Many studies have highlighted the presence of fear and anxiety during the most uncertain times of the pandemic, especially in those countries most badly affected at the time (e.g., Italy, UK, China). But what happens when we turn our heads towards more resilient countries, such as some of the Nordic countries?

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Policy approaches to information disorder in the digital welfare state

This progress report presents ongoing work conducted as part of NORDIS Activity 3: POLICY & INFORMATION LITERACY by Helsinki University. In this report the most interesting findings from the research on policy approaches to the information disorder in the Nordics are presented. The countries studied in this report, Norway, Denmark, Sweden and Finland, are performing very well in many statistical reports on media and democracy. Recent quantitative international studies on the subject of resilience to disinformation has been published...

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Opportunities and challenges of public service media organisations in countering information disorder

Public service media (PSM) are widely considered to play a significant role in the fight against disinformation. The basic remit of PSM, formed around values of universality, independence, excellence, diversity, accountability, and innovation, implies a responsibility to fight disinformation by producing fact-based news and identifying remedies for disinformation. The importance of PSM is recognised in the resolution of the Council of Europe, which calls on member governments to support PSM while also urging PSM organisations to make countering disinformation a priority.

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State of the art in fact-checking technology

The purpose of this report is to summarise the state of art in fact-checking technology in Europe and the United States. We aim to build a knowledge foundation to inform and guide coming work in the NORDIS project. The report contains an exploration of how fact-checking practices are augmented with different technical tools and an overview of available or emerging technology. The report ends with a brief analysis of gaps in available technology in relation to working processes and opportunities for development.

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Report on the user needs of fact-checkers

Derives and prioritises user needs of the fact-checkers participating in the NORDIS project. We analyse innovation challenges in fact-checking and, together with fact-checkers, develop our understanding of work processes and the current state-of-the-art technology with regard to the use of artificial intelligence (AI) tools in newsrooms. The report guides our design and development work in the project. Our research identified four types of tools that are needed: social network monitoring, political debate monitoring, claim collection and detection, and verification in context.

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Detection methods: the algorithms used to identify problematic content and behaviors

This report describes different types of computational approaches to support the identification of online problematic content and behaviours. The focus of the report is on the applicability of these approaches to Nordic social media data. We also describe the system used to collect data for our case studies, and the results obtained applying selected methods to the collected data. Based on the review and systematisation of existing approaches, the development of original methods, and their application to real data, this report also provides a list of considerations...

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The NORDIS research partners consist of four university partners, each representing one of the four Nordic countries. The university partners, Aarhus University, University of Helsinki, University in Bergen and Uppsala University, constitute a multidisciplinary research network ranging from computer science to media, journalism, and policy studies. The research activities are divided into 4 activities, each led by one of the University Partners:

Activity 2, led by the NORDIS coordinator, Aarhus University, will provide research on the context and circulation of mis- and disinformation in Nordic countries on digital media. The research conducted will be based on cross country data.

Activity 2 will add new research on disinformation that will lay the foundation for shared fact-checking initiatives, policy measures, and further insights into the emotions and influencers of disinformation

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Scientific Publications Repository

The EDMO archive of European academic research on disinformation in digital media provides an overview of academic research within the field of disinformation, and it will be continually updated throughout the project.

Scientific Publications Repository