FakeNarratives explores disinformation in public and alternative news videos using methods of discourse and language analysis along with machine learning.

The FakeNarratives project is funded by the “Detecting and Combating Digital Disinformation Campaigns” funding program of the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). The aim of the project is to conduct detailed research into how narratives of disinformation work in public service news broadcasts and alternative information videos. For this purpose, researchers from the L3S Research Center are collaborating with colleagues from the University of Bremen (coordination) and the University of Leipzig to combine discourse analysis, linguistic analysis, and research methods from the digital humanities with state-of-the-art machine learning techniques for video analysis and approaches from visual analytics. Based on these findings, semi-automatic approaches will then be developed and integrated into a digital tool that can systematically reveal mechanisms and strategies of narratives of disinformation and allow the derivation of effective countermeasures on the basis of a large-scale media analysis. The findings are to result in concrete proposals for solutions and handouts for the creators of public news broadcasts, which will help to avoid unwanted narratives of disinformation and neutralize disinformation campaigns.