A Critical Review of the anglophone and francophone Mis/disinformation Research

Towards a conceptual history. Part I

Bibliographic Data

ID12863602
AuthorsJayson Harsin (0000-0002-8696-8834, corresponding author)
Year2025
Volume48
Pages371-396
Publication date2025-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueQuestions de communication (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1633-5961 • E-ISSN: 2259-8901
PublisherOpenEdition (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.4000/15b16
OpenAlexW4417156925
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited46

My goal in this article is two-fold, in two parts. First, I wish to examine the lexicological and conceptual history of the terms and academic concepts in English and French increasingly employed to characterize an explosion of political deception and associated public dis-, and misbelief: “disinformation”, “misinformation”, “information disorder”, in English, and désinformation, mésinformation, fausses informations, and infox, in French. The analysis includes a systematic literature review of francophone and anglophone literatures. It asks whether scholars may have been mistaken in 2017-2018 to start characterizing phenomena as “disinformation” and “misinformation” in reaction to criticisms of the widely used “fake news” in English. My position, after tracing the popular and academic genealogies of these terms, is that their prominent place in contemporary academic and policy discourse in French and English is a seeming fluke; that they did not emerge in English from careful academic conceptual development and discussion that explored their history, their relationship to other related and competing concepts, and their comparatively superior or inferior conceptual potential to operationalize research and or explain and help resolve contemporary problems identified with popular epistemology and deceptive communication

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