Elections mean more misinformation. There is how it spreads to the immigrant community

Australian immigrants often encounter disinformation targeting their communities. However, non-English languages ​​and published within private chat groups are often out of reach of algorithms from Australia’s public agencies, national media and platforms.

This regulatory gap means that migrant communities will be disproportionately targeted during crises, elections and referendums when misinformation and disinformation are amplified.

With federal elections around the corner, I wanted to understand how immigrants come across disinformation, how they respond, and, importantly, what they can do.

Our research

Our research finds that political disinformation is circulating both online and directly between friends and family.

Between 2023 and 2024, we conducted a survey with 192 respondents. Seven focus groups were then conducted with 14 participants who identified as having Chinese or South Asian cultural heritage.

We wanted to understand their experiences with political engagement and media consumption in Australia.

An important challenge facing research participants is online disinformation. This issue has already not been addressed for many years by Australian public agencies and technology companies, even before Meta terminated its fact-checking program.

Lack of diversity in news

In our study, participants read news and information from a variety of traditional media services that are carefully cautious.

They encounter disinformation in two ways.

The first is information that misrepresents their identity, culture and the country of origin, especially found in the English language Australian national media.

The second is targeted disinformation distributed across non-English social media services, including private social media channels.

From zero (no trust) to five (most trustworthy), we asked the survey participants to rank their trust in Australian national media sources. This includes ABC, SBS, The Age, Sydney Morning Herald, 9 News, and 7 Network.

Participants reported moderate confidence (3).

Our focus group explained that participants were directed at both traditional news sources and social media news sources. Their ideas reflected other studies with immigration. For example, second generation of South Asian immigrants “feels like a lot of marketing in traditional media (…) using marketing language to persuade people in certain ways.”

Several participants from Chinese and South Asian cultural backgrounds reported that the Australian national media misrepresented culture and identity due to the lack of true diversity within news organizations. “The moment you’re a person of color, everyone thinks you are Chinese. And we are painted with the same paintbrush. It’s very frustrating (…)”

The other is, “Sri Lanka usually enters the media primarily for travel and tourism cricket. Other than that, there is not much deeper insight.”

For immigrants, the lack of genuine involvement with their communities and countries of origin distorts public understanding and reduces immigration to one-dimensional, often stereotypical depictions. This simplification undermines immigrants’ trust in Australia’s national media.

Participants also expressed minimal trust in news and information about social media. They often avoid clicking on headline links, including those shared by national Australian media outlets. According to politically active male participants of Chinese and Malaysian origins:

“I really don’t like to read social media in China despite being very active in WeChat and subscribe to some news just to see what’s going on. . We spot editorials with mistakes and opinions, not actual news.”

Consuming news from multiple sources to understand different political trends is a strategy that many participants adopted to counter bias or partial news coverage. This was especially true of issues of personal concern, such as human rights and climate change.

What can you do?

Currently, Australia does not have an effective mechanism to combat online disinformation targeting immigrant communities, particularly those whose primary language is not English.

A generalized counter-dies information approach (such as awareness campaigns) is not effective even when translated into multiple languages.

This is because the disinformation that circulates in these communities is often highly targeted and customized. Challenge Skalemonge, focusing on geopolitical, economic and immigration policies, is a common theme. These stories are too specific for a population-level approach to work.

Our focus group revealed that the burden of dealing with disinformation often poses to family and close friends. This responsibility is carried, in particular, by community-oriented individuals with higher levels of media and digital knowledge. Women and young families play an important role.

Focus group members showed us how they described Australian political events to their families in terms they were more familiar with.

During the Parliamentary referendum, one participant said on Japanese imperialism to help Chinese and Australian friends better understand the outcomes of colonialism and their impact on Australian indigenous communities. We referenced the history of China’s resistance.

Young female participants shared that the struggle against online disinformation is an emotionally taxable process. This is especially true if it occurs within a family. It often leads to conflict. People said,

“I’m tired of intervening honestly. And it’s family (…) my parents, close friends, etc. So much misinformation is given to WhatsApp and Socials. Usually, it’s the same. , dad or mother, I’ll intervene.”

Intervention in an informal way does not always work. Family dynamics, gender hierarchy, and generational differences can hinder these efforts.

Countering disinformation requires facing deeper social issues related to race, ethnicity, gender, power and the environment.

International research suggests that community-based approaches do a better job in combating misinformation in specific cohorts, such as immigration. This type of work can be done in a setting that people trust. Its community centers and public libraries.

This means they are not reliant solely on changes in law or practices on online platforms.

Instead, the evidence suggests that it is helpful to develop community-based interventions that are culturally resonant and tailored to historical disadvantages.

The recently released Toolkit has a series of Australian public services and institutions, including national media, to avoid alienating and inadvertently misleading Asian and Australians when approaching key election campaigns. We are creating recommendations.

This article will be republished from the conversation under a Creative Commons license. Please read the original article.