Project Muse What Is Disinformation

Bonisiwe Shabane

-Dec 5, 2025, 7:13 PM

This website uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. Without cookies your experience may not be seamless. Prototypical instances of disinformation include deceptive advertising (in business and in politics), government propaganda, doctored photographs, forged documents, fake maps, internet frauds, fake websites, and manipulated Wikipedia entries. Disinformation can cause significant harm if people are misled by it. In order to address this critical threat to information quality, we first need to understand exactly what disinformation is. This paper surveys the various analyses of this concept that have been proposed by information scientists and philosophers (most notably, Luciano Floridi).

It argues that these analyses are either too broad (that is, that they include things that are not disinformation), or too narrow (they exclude things that are disinformation), or both. Indeed, several of these analyses exclude important forms of disinformation, such as true disinformation, visual disinformation, side-effect disinformation, and adaptive disinformation. After considering the shortcomings of these analyses, the paper argues that disinformation is misleading information that has the function of misleading. Finally, in addition to responding to Floridi’s claim that such a precise analysis of disinformation is not necessary, it briefly discusses how this analysis can help us develop techniques for detecting disinformation and policies... Project MUSE promotes the creation and dissemination of essential humanities and social science resources through collaboration with libraries, publishers, and scholars worldwide. Forged from a partnership between a university press and a library, Project MUSE is a trusted part of the academic and scholarly community it serves.

2715 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 ©2025 Project MUSE. Produced by Johns Hopkins University Press in collaboration with The Sheridan Libraries. We’re often persuaded or influenced by what we see and hear online. Researchers say, Black communities have been specifically targeted online by bad actors that post false information about cultural issues, attempting to increase divisions in Black communities, influence how we vote, and influence public opinions. An inaccurate information and untrue statements, often shared unintentionally.

Most people that spread misinformation are doing so unknowingly. False information surrounding cultural issues or topics, spread unintentionally. False information that is intentionally shared, usually to create confusion or manipulate target audiences. People, organizations, or governments that spread disinformation often do so deliberately to control perceptions or to cause confusion among their target audiences. False and inaccurate information surrounding cultural issues or topics that are spread with intentions of deceiving, coercing, or shaping public opinions. Cultural disinformation is fully intentional.

Disinformation refers to the deliberate dissemination of false or misleading information, often intended to deceive or manipulate an individual or a group of people. The terms disinformation and misinformation are often used interchangeably. Some authors define disinformation as a more general term encompassing also misinformation. However, within the UN agencies (UNESCO, OHCHR) the most frequent usage is that which distinguishes mis- and disinformation based on the presence/absence of intention. Misinformation has a neutral or good underlying intent, whereas disinformation is defined as having intention to deceive. This text is only intended to provide introductory information about the topic.

To find out about UNESCO's official position and actions in this field, please consult our relevant webpages and reports. UNESCO cooperates with the judiciary and security forces to support their vital role in reinforcing the “three Ps” (Prevention, Protection, and Prosecution), to guarantee journalist’s safety and end impunity for crimes against them. Our editors will review what you’ve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Misinformation is false information spread without intent to harm, while disinformation is false information deliberately spread to mislead and manipulate facts. Misinformation spreads quickly on social media because users can easily share false information with a simple click, often without verifying its accuracy, leading to rapid dissemination. Disinformation affects elections by spreading false narratives that undermine trust in the electoral process, influencing public opinion and voter behavior.

During the COVID-19 pandemic, mis- and disinformation spread false claims about cures, treatments, and vaccine risks, leading to confusion, lower vaccination rates, and preventable deaths. Advances is Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its ability to generate text and images has added a new dimension to the challenges of discerning reality. These article provide an overview on AI and disinformation: The Role of Artificial Intelligence and Disinformation How AI Will Turbocharge Misinformation and What We Can Do About It The University of Washington has created an AI Guide for a deep dive into the topic.

And, remember, you can always trust your librarians to help you navigate these increasingly murky waters. This guide was developed by faculty librarians at Boise State University's Albertsons Library. It has been reviewed and revised by students of the library's DisinfoSquad who were part of a grant project funded by Homeland Security. For inquiries related to the guide contact Professor/Librarian Elizabeth Ramsey, elizabethramsey@boisestate.edu. Disinformation is false or misleading information deliberately spread to deceive people,[1][2][3][4][5] or to secure economic or political gain and which may cause public harm.[6] Disinformation is an orchestrated adversarial activity in which actors employ... In contrast, misinformation refers to inaccuracies that stem from inadvertent error.[10] Misinformation can be used to create disinformation when known misinformation is purposefully and intentionally disseminated.[11] "Fake news" has sometimes been categorized as a...

The English word disinformation comes from the application of the Latin prefix dis- to information making the meaning "reversal or removal of information". The rarely used word had appeared with this usage in print at least as far back as 1887.[15][16][17][18] Some consider it a loan translation of the Russian дезинформация, transliterated as dezinformatsiya,[19][1][2] apparently derived from the title of a KGB black propaganda department.[20][1][21][19] Soviet planners in the 1950s defined disinformation as "dissemination (in... Disinformation first made an appearance in dictionaries in 1985, specifically, Webster's New College Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary.[23] In 1986, the term disinformation was not defined in Webster's New World Thesaurus or New... Disinformation, can come in a variety of forms, it might be political, it might be economic. And it might be kind of a social issue.

But, again, I want to mention that those distinctions aren’t always clear. So for example, if you support people having health care, like the healthcare for all or the Medicare for all, or Obamacare, or any one of those potential avenues, about health issues, that’s a... It’s also a social issue, because it affects humans. So what counts as being fake news? Well, first of all, the one question to ask yourself is, is it actually news? It’s important to always look at that dateline to find out when was this published or produced, because if it’s, it’s not timely, it can kind of confuse you about its relevance.

It can’t is news, if it’s something of importance, proximity matters as well. So this is kind of like how important it is to you as a person. So for example, if you are someone who is in America on a green card, policy issues about green cards are probably a little bit more salient to you than someone who is not... prominence is important, too. You may have heard, there’s a there’s a famous phrase that I’m going to paraphrase here, where it’s like, if you break your arm, that’s not famous news. But if the Queen of England breaks her arm, then that is news.

And so anything that’s kind of unusual, counts as being news. Again, there’s a famous phrase where it’s like, a dog bites a man, that’s not big news. But if a man bites a dog, now that’s going to be in the news, because it’s just more unusual. Or anything that’s kind of just a human interest story is going to count as news. So that’s question number one. Is it news?

Question number two, Who wrote it? was it written by a professional, so sometimes you can get an idea about that by looking at where it was published or printed? Because if it’s, you know, a news outlet that is run by people who have degrees in journalism, chances are good that it’s going to be written by a professional. And you can’t always tell that though. Even real news gets it wrong sometimes. For example, CBS, this is like many years ago now, but I guess it wasn’t that many years ago.

CBS did a report on George W. Bush. And the report was basically saying that while he was in the National Guard, I think it was that he got special treatment in the military. But the report was based on information that could not be verified. And so his evidence is that they weren’t lying on purpose or anything, but that they were relying on faulty information. And in the fall, it was so bad that the very famous reporter Dan rather’s resigned because of this what we would call Miss information, because maybe it wasn’t intentional.

But it was not supported by the evidence, Dan Rather, is, you might still know of him because he’s kind of famous on social media now. And it’s not always accidental. Sometimes it’s intentional. give you this weird example, Brian Williams and other famous reporter said that he was in a helicopter that got shot down in a war zone. And that was very easy to show that that didn’t happen. So nobody really kind of knew what was up with that.

But again, he was a professional journalist who, you know, that story just was not accurate. So it’s hard to define who is a professional journalist, but they generally have these three qualities, knowledge, organization and autonomy, autonomy, meaning that, you know, they’re not reporting by for a company that... So professional people in journalism are going to seek the truth, the objective truth, they’re also going to minimize harm. They’re going to act independently. Again, they’re not you know, beholden to the their sponsors to say good things about products or people. They’re going to be accountable and transparent.

But then you have the question, well, who are they accountable to? Are they accountable to the organization they work for? Are they accountable to their audience, you have to kind of ask those things I wanted to bring up also, because this is an issue that comes up a lot is that people think... But we don’t always find that the case. Sometimes there are certain issues where the vast majority of evidence says one thing. So you don’t want to give equal time to the opposing argument.

Project Muse What Is Disinformation

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It Argues That These Analyses Are Either Too Broad (that

2715 North Charles StreetBaltimore, Maryland, USA 21218 ©2025 Project MUSE.

Most People That Spread Misinformation Are Doing So Unknowingly. False

Disinformation Refers To The Deliberate Dissemination Of False Or Misleading