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16.10.

Fr / 10:30 – 12:00

Working group “Circuits of Mistrust and Misinformation in the Americas”

Presentation at the postdoc lab meeting

Carlos Zúñiga Nieto, Sonja Pykkö

College for Social Sciences and Humanities, UA Ruhr | Research Alliance, Lindenallee 39-41, 45127 Essen, Germany

About the working group:

The working group ‘Circuits of Mistrust and Misinformation in the Americas’ investigates the historical and contemporary dynamics of misinformation and mistrust from Alaska to Patagonia. It examines how what many describe as a ‘post-truth’ era coincides with a broader crisis of trust affecting politics, journalism, education, healthcare, and other areas of public life. The project places these current developments in context with the longer history of false narratives in the Americas, highlighting the networks and infrastructures through which misinformation and mistrust circulate in mutually reinforcing cycles.

Combining perspectives from the humanities and social sciences, the working group analyses the concrete relationships in which mistrust is negotiated and misinformation disseminated. Drawing on historical and anthropological research on fakes and frauds, and inspired by Bruno Latour’s actor-network theory, the project seeks to move beyond dichotomies of victims and perpetrators to trace the circuits, understood as networks and technologies through which mistrust and misinformation spread. By attending to such dynamics, the researchers seek to clarify how asymmetric negotiations of trust shape societies and how forms of misinformation – including rumours and conspiracy theories as well as more contemporary forms such as fake news and deepfakes – both emerge from and contribute to crises of trust in different periods.

Key questions include how misinformation circulates through networks, institutions, and media technologies, and how an atmosphere of mistrust feeds into this circulation. Investigating this phenomenon, the project provides new insight into the historical and cultural dynamics of misinformation and its broader impacts on societal trust. Through its practical activities, which include organising workshops and developing a proposal for a long-term research network, the working group strengthens knowledge exchange between misinformation researchers in Europe and the Americas.