Media literacy education in South Africa can help combat fake news – here’s what’s needed
Online platforms are replete with examples of false information – from WhatsApp messages punting some miraculous cure for COVID, to social media posts claiming a politician said something they didn’t. It’s increasingly common in South Africa. More than 75% of South Africans say they regularly come across political news they think...
An Assessment of Media Literacy and Fact-Checking Training Needs in South African Schools and Universities
This new report co-authored by Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales aims to identify knowledge and skills gaps related to teaching about misinformation through a needs assessment of educators in South Africa. The aim is to assist the development of media and information literacy materials that can be used in...
Wasserman and Madrid-Morales present research at the Centre for the Study of Contemporary China, University of Pennsylvania
Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales will present their paper “What Motivates the Sharing of Misinformation about China and Covid-19? A Study of Social Media Users in Kenya and South Africa” at the international conference “Narratives of COVID-19 in China and the World: Technology, Society, and Nations” hosted by the...
“Deconstructing De-legitimization of Mainstream Media as Sources of Authentic News in the Post-Truth Era”
A new article was publishedd in Communicatio: South African Journal for Communication Theory and Research by Moses Ofome Asak and Tshepang Bright Molale, researchers at North West University in South Africa, that explores the publication of “fake news reportage” on two South African newspapers. Here is the abstract of...
New Publication in African Journalism Studies
Africa’s leading academic journal in Media and Communication, African Journalism Studies, has published the paper “An Exploratory Study of “Fake News” and Media Trust in Kenya, Nigeria and South Africa” by Herman Wasserman and Dani Madrid-Morales, lead researchers of the Misinformation, Disinformation & False News in Africa Research Project....