By María Capurro Robles, OBSERVACOM project coordinator.
During the conference “Audiovisual Regulators: Measures to Combat Disinformation”, convened by the Ibero-American Platform of Audiovisual Regulators (PRAI), OBSERVACOM provided recommendations on concrete actions, strategies, and collaborations that audiovisual regulators can deploy to address disinformation and protect audiences.
Growing concern about the disinformation landscape and the challenge it poses to democracies and the exercise of freedom of expression led the Ibero-American Platform of Audiovisual Regulators (PRAI) to organize the conference “Audiovisual Regulators: Measures to Combat Disinformation,” on May 13. This space for reflection and dialogue among regulators aimed to share initiatives, evaluate strategies, and review the results of actions implemented to combat disinformation.
OBSERVACOM, an observer member of PRAI, participated in the conference, providing proposals and recommendations on actions and measures that audiovisual regulators can take to address disinformation and protect the rights of audiences.
Literacy, training and articulation
A first set of measures, already implemented by many audiovisual regulators, are aimed at promoting media and information literacy among citizens. OBSERVACOM emphasized the need for these measures to be framed within a perspective of empowerment in the face of disinformation. That is, they should not only warn and raise awareness about the problem and its impacts, but also strengthen, generate, and promote capacities related to the way people engage with information.
From this perspective, literacy initiatives help strengthen audiences’ critical thinking and reflection on the information they interact with daily. This is a skill that applies across all formats, devices, and environments in which they access information, hence its relevance.
OBSERVACOM then addressed another key tool for combating disinformation: collaboration between public agencies—that is, with entities within the state itself—and between regulators and institutions such as civil society organizations, universities, and unions.
These partnerships are key tools for combating disinformation. Audiovisual regulators can, for example, deploy strategies to combat health-related disinformation with technical bodies, jointly produce information, address citizen concerns, or develop literacy strategies. They can do the same with ombudsmen and state agencies for the protection of children and adolescents at different levels, or with electoral authorities during election times, to mention other examples of robust institutional frameworks in countries across the region.
Likewise, with these technical bodies, civil society organizations, and specialists, audiovisual regulators can promote participatory processes for adopting recommendations so that journalists, communicators, and other communication professionals have practical tools to identify and respond to disinformation and avoid generating or spreading it. The participation of this sector in the development of these tools is key to their future dissemination and appropriation.
For this reason, OBSERVACOM’s proposals included training and dissemination strategies for these recommendations, aimed at both communications professionals and general audiences. For example, recommendations against misinformation regarding vaccination or mental health, broadcast on public, community, or even commercial stations, or short virtual training courses for journalists about electoral misinformation. These types of actions generate capacities that serve as “antibodies” against misinformation in all environments, media, and services through which information is accessed.
Citizen complaints and investigations
OBSERVACOM also focused on the importance of addressing the concerns that citizens raise with audiovisual regulators regarding disinformation. This applies both to services that fall within their jurisdiction according to current regulations in Latin America, and to the digital environment, which is currently outside their purview.
In the first case, actions can be developed and information, dialogue, and reparation processes promoted outside of a sanction-based approach. These processes strengthen capacities, modify practices, and prevent future scenarios of disinformation. In the second case, when dealing with disinformation situations that occur in the digital environment and of which the regulator becomes aware through complaints from audiences, these can be referred to technical bodies (electoral authorities, children’s ombudsman’s offices, Ministry of Health, along the lines of the examples already mentioned) so that these bodies can evaluate the measures to be adopted.
Another tool OBSERVACOM highlighted for combating disinformation is the production of information by regulators, something some already do on various topics. Interdisciplinary research is key to analyzing the phenomenon and responding to it. Research can arise from unforeseen events (think of a natural disaster) or in relation to foreseeable issues such as the outcome of an electoral process. Understanding how disinformation (and its antibodies) operate in these contexts is key for both regulators and other public or civil society actors to make decisions.
Is it possible, then, for audiovisual regulators to address the phenomenon of disinformation, even when it originates or spreads in communication environments that are outside their purview, such as digital platforms? This review of possible measures provides an affirmative answer to that question. Beyond the fact that communication via platforms has transformed the scale, scope, and impact of disinformation, there are strategies, such as those recommended, that enable regulatory bodies to address the phenomenon, which impacts the observance of various human rights.
Media literacy from an empowerment perspective, participatory processes and recommendations for journalists, inter-institutional coordination, research, and the channeling of citizen concerns can all be employed to address the problem comprehensively and to build capacity to challenge misinformation and contribute to strengthening audiences.