Climate misinformation
Project title: “MISINFORMATION AND CLIMATE CHANGE IN QUEBEC AND CANADA: ACTORS, DISCOURSE, ADHERENCE, AND SOLUTIONS”
The main objective of the research project is to better understand how online climate misinformation is structured across the country, by province, and in various subpopulations, and what effective solutions may exist to counter it. It includes three specific sub-objectives that will be broken down into three methodological components:
1) Identify and analyze the actors, networks, and discourses and narratives of misinformation related to climate denial in Quebec;
2) Measure the acceptance of these different narratives of climate denial among the Quebec and Canadian populations and the main factors driving this acceptance;
3) Test a potential solution aimed at reducing susceptibility to disinformation by applying the motivational interviewing (MI) method, which has proven effective in the context of vaccine hesitancy and emphasizes listening over refutation.
Overall, this project will develop new empirical knowledge on the phenomenon of climate misinformation, improve our understanding, and mobilize this knowledge to inform, using mixed methods, the actions of partners in practice settings directly affected by these issues. Thus, this project will build the capacity of key actors to recognize and assess the prevalence of climate change misinformation, namely organizations working in the field, the media, governments, and civil society. This capacity building will be achieved through awareness-raising and the presentation of results to the various key stakeholders, including a series of webinars and training workshops offered to the partners concerned, and iconography produced and disseminated in collaboration with the organization La Science d’Abord. This training addresses how to communicate about climate change and is conducted in partnership with the Association des communicateurs scientifiques du Québec (Quebec Association of Science Communicators) and a podcast produced in collaboration with Agence Science-Presse.
This project is a partnership and is funded by the Fonds de recherche du Québec – Société et culture (Quebec Research Fund – Society and Culture) ($77,000).
Informing and advocating without polarizing: how can public communications by environmental groups help reduce misinformation and political radicalization?
Project title: “INFORMING AND ADVOCATING WITHOUT POLARIZING: HOW CAN PUBLIC COMMUNICATIONS BY ENVIRONMENTAL GROUPS HELP REDUCE MISINFORMATION AND POLITICAL RADICALIZATION?”
The aim of this project is to help activist organizations become better equipped to deal constructively and strategically with misinformation and demagoguery on social media. Drawing on best practices in this area (crisis communication, public health communication, democratic dialogue, non-polarizing communication, etc.), we will be able to diagnose the types of messages and the reactions they elicit and thus co-develop courses of action and response strategies tailored to users who spread misinformation and radical rhetoric. This project is in partnership with RAPS and Équiterre.
International project on the effects of disinformation on socio-scientific controversies
Project title: “IN THE SCHOOL OF UNCERTAINTY: EXAMINING CONFLICTS OF TRUTH IN SCHOOL CONTEXTS IN QUEBEC, BELGIUM, FRANCE, AND SWITZERLAND”
A previous SSHRC Knowledge Development (KD) project (Tremblay et al., 2021-2023) explored the epistemic and political imagination of young Quebecers by analyzing their rather fluid modes of reception and adherence to conspiracy theories in the context of COVID-19. This project aims to deepen and broaden the initial project in terms of its subject matter and context by conducting a comparative study of the existential, epistemic, and social conceptions of students and their teachers on issues of current interest in Quebec, France, Belgium, and Switzerland. Indeed, despite the values and policies of secularism that promote openness to diversity in these various national contexts, the confrontation of worldviews around sensitive issues often generates conflicts between different rationalities or regimes of truth (e.g., epistemic, symbolic, divine, etc.). This is the case, among others, for issues 1- of gender and sexual orientation, 2- the origin and evolution of life, and 3- vaccination, which are used here as examples, since they are found in the curricula of the four countries under study (citizenship education and science and technology), are current issues, and therefore affect adolescents as well as their teachers. These themes will serve as triggers for the confrontation of different regimes of truth. This project therefore has three objectives:
1- To describe the understanding that students and teachers have of the chosen themes and the arguments supporting this understanding (regimes of truth);
2- To analyze the modalities of negotiation between the different regimes of truth in the classroom; and
3- Compare national educational models for dealing with conflicts of truth in order to shed light on the logic behind the distinction between “knowledge” and “non-knowledge” in schools.
This project has two expected outcomes. On the scientific level, it will:
1) Examining the views of young people (aged 15-16) and their teachers on controversial topics about which contradictory information is circulating, drawn from different registers of truth (epistemic, existential, and social);
2) Examining the ways in which these conflicts of truth are dealt with in schools in various secular and French-speaking societies;
3) Strengthen the collaborative ties of a network of international researchers on controversies/truth conflicts in schools.
On the social level, the project aims to:
1) Contribute to the professional development of teachers by offering them an opportunity for critical reflection on their own teaching practices regarding socially sensitive issues (SSIs);
2) Highlighting and sharing teaching and learning strategies as well as implicit expertise in the various contexts under study on SSI.
This project is a partnership and is funded by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada (SSHRC) ($300,894).
International project, in collaboration with France, on the links between fiction and conspiracy theories in the public sphere
Project title: “FICTIONS AND IMAGINARIES OF CONSPIRACY: SOCIAL REPRESENTATIONS, NARRATIVES, AND COLLECTIVE BELIEFS (CONSPIFIC)”
The ConspiFic project explores the intersections between fictional narratives and conspiracy imaginaries in order to better understand the construction of collective beliefs in the context of disinformation. Through an interdisciplinary approach drawing on social psychology, literature, philosophy, communication, and education sciences, the project analyzes how fictional and pseudo-factual narratives intertwine and influence individuals’ social representations and attitudes toward information. The work is based on a mixed methodology (experimental analyses, surveys, content studies, literary analyses) in order to examine the cognitive, emotional, and social factors underlying the acceptance or reception of these narratives. The results will provide a better understanding of the mechanisms by which conspiracy theories spread and enable the development of appropriate educational and media resources, in particular through the creation of popular content (e.g., thematic fact sheets, scientific publications, digital content).
This project is being carried out in partnership with the French National Research Agency (ANR), the University of Rennes 2, the University of Sherbrooke, the University of Lausanne, the University of Lorraine, and the University of Clermont-Auvergne.
Project on the disinformation ecosystem and alternative media and their links with other international disinformation ecosystems
Project title: “PORTRAIT OF ALTERNATIVE MEDIA IN CANADA AND THE IDEOLOGIES SHARED BY THESE PLATFORMS”
In recent years, our team has observed a very active disinformation ecosystem in Quebec, sharing content with the French conspiracy sphere and employing various communication and networking strategies among key influencers (Carignan and Morin, 2022; Carignan et al., 2021). This ecosystem appears to be increasingly ideologically right-wing (Bédard et al., 2024). Among these influencers, a number present themselves as professional or “independent” journalists, describing their content as professional and unbiased information, when in fact these influencers do not meet the ethical standards of the journalism profession. Furthermore, they seem to select information that supports their political and ideological positions. Some of these alternative media outlets even offer training to aspiring journalists, promising to teach them “vital journalistic skills around misinformation, disinformation, fact-checking, and reporting on forbidden subjects” (Rebel News, 2024). Many of these media outlets operate through crowdfunding strategies and the sale of promotional items.
The speed at which these platforms are growing, the audience they reach, and their controversial claims to act professionally, particularly during the last federal election campaign, have prompted us to develop a major project that will provide a better understanding of this new environment, which is becoming key to gaining a comprehensive overview of the potential sources of information available to Canadian citizens. The project seems all the more important as it coincides with certain recommendations in the Hogues Commission report on foreign interference, particularly with regard to disinformation.
More specifically, this study will:
– Identify the main alternative media outlets in Quebec and Canada, as well as the influencers who work on these platforms;
– Study the networks of influencers and these media outlets in order to understand the relationships between them;
– Paint a picture of the main Canadian and foreign (United States, France) alternative media consumed in the country;
– Analyze the main topics covered by these media and their angle of coverage;
– Understand their positioning and financing strategies on different platforms.
Project on the role of talk radio in the spread of misinformation
Project title: “ROOM FOR DISINFORMATION? ANALYSIS OF THE COVERAGE OF THE 2024 U.S. ELECTIONS BY TALK RADIO STATIONS IN THE QUEBEC CITY AREA”
Disinformation and misinformation are major issues in democracy and pose a significant risk to our societies (Policy Horizons Canada, 2024; Council of Canadian Academies, 2023). In the context of the US presidential elections, these realities can affect the quality of democratic debate, trust in institutions, and voter behavior. They are exploited both by national actors to mobilize their electoral base and by international actors to destabilize American democracy. We therefore believe it is essential to observe their potential presence in the information sources of Quebecers and Canadians, which is why we propose to analyze how talk radio stations in the Quebec City region cover the 2024 US elections and whether false stories, rumors, and conspiracy theories can slip into the content broadcast by these stations. More specifically, this study will:
– Understand how four talk radio stations in the Quebec City region covered the 2024 US election campaign in their morning shows (topics covered, angles of coverage, type of journalism, differences and similarities between stations).
– Evaluate how these talk radio stations covered false stories, rumors, and conspiracy theories related to the 2024 US election (factual, partisan, biased coverage, etc.).
– Contribute to a better understanding of how talk radio stations in Quebec cover political topics and the 2024 presidential campaign.
This project is in partnership with the Political Communication Research Group (GRCP).