Admission requirements
Not applicable
Description
As data journalism became ever more popular during the second decade of the 21st century, it slowly moved away from its DIY origins. Instead, data journalism started professionalizing within established newsrooms and other legacy media walls. Nevertheless, the crises of fake news and misinformation impacting the legitimacy of mainstream media have brought new impetus to grassroots groups that create fact-checking initiatives assisting journalists in fighting against misinformation. Moreover, in times of declining trust in the press and organized attacks on democracies worldwide, citizens are making up for the inability of institutional actors to police social media where misinformation runs rampant, legitimizing new forms of knowledge production in journalism. This course will show how both journalists and citizens can employ different methods and tools to practice investigative journalism. In a context where misinformation spreads faster than the truth on social media, this course aims to offer students the knowledge and skills to practice investigative reporting and work towards settling ground truths and debunking misinformation campaigns.
During the first 45 minutes of each seminar, we will discuss the readings and examples in an interactive format. You are expected to do the readings and come prepared with some discussion points. These could be aspects of the texts that you found exciting or problematic or practical examples you know that we could use as case studies. Afterward, we will have a 20-minute break for lunch.
The remaining half of the seminar is devoted to your case study presentations. In the second part of the seminar, you will present an Open-Source Intelligence tutorial you have followed and ideally mastered. You should accompany your presentation with a case study, which can be the same used in the tutorial or one of your choices if you feel up for the challenge. The presentation should also reflect upon the literature of the course. Groups have a maximum size of three people. Each week has a specific list of tutorials you can follow. This part will take around one hour and a half, depending on how handy we are. All of the techniques we will learn in the course require much more time to master than what we have allocated on campus. Thus, it is the responsibility of the students to make some extra time to practice and troubleshoot.
Course objectives
Understand theories regarding how and why misinformation spreads, and why people are susceptible to digital manipulation techniques.
Examine challenges and proposed educational solutions to the problem of misinformation.
Learn about how journalists identify and prevent the spread of misinformation using research techniques for evaluating sources
Develop basic fact-checking skills.
Timetable
The timetables are available through MyTimetable.
Mode of instruction
Seminar
Assessment method
Assessment
In-class presentation: 40%
Final project: 60%
Weighing
In-class presentation: 40%
Final project: 60%
Resit
The resit consists of the same subtests as the first opportunity.
Inspection and feedback
How and when an exam review will take place will be disclosed together with the publication of the exam results at the latest. If a student requests a review within 30 days after publication of the exam results, an exam review will have to be organized.
Reading list
Week 1 – Open Source Intelligence – Image reverse search (06-11).
Tutorials:
1. Bellingcat’s first steps in OSINT
2. Bellingcat’s first steps in verification
3. Starting an investigation with image reverse-search
Read:
1. OSINT: IMPAKT webproject on Investigative Journalism
Week 2 – Geolocation (13-11).
Tutorials:
1. How to structure a basic investigation? (archived)
2. Learning to geolocate with GeoGuessr (archived)
3. Creating panoramas out of video stills (archived)
Week 3 – Geolocation 2 (20-11).
Tutorials:
1. Locating fires with satellite images
2. Geolocating videos on YouTube
3. Geolocating videos on YouTube 2 (easier)
Read:
1. Ristovska. S. 2022. “Open-source investigation as a genre of conflict reporting.” In Journalism
Week 4 – Chronolocation (27-11).
Tutorials:
1. Chronolocation basics (archived)
2. Chronolocation of Media (Difficult. Archived)
3. How to think about chronolocation (archived)
Week 5 – Scrapping (04-12).
Tutorials:
1. Telegram workflow
2. Telegram workflow 2
Week 6 – Group work (11-12).
The first part of the seminar in Week 6 be dedicated to progress and results presentations. You will keep working with your group in the second half of the class. Here, you are encouraged to ask as many theoretical and technical questions as possible. Take advantage of these two weeks to get feedback from your classmates, both in skills and ideas.
Registration
Enrolment through MyStudyMap is mandatory.
General information about course and exam enrolment is available on the website.
Registration Studeren à la carte en Contractonderwijs
Not applicable.
Contact
For substantive questions, contact the lecturer listed in the right information bar.
For questions about enrolment, admission, etc, contact the Education Administration Office: Arsenaal Education Administration Office.
Remarks
Not applicable.