DFG Priority Programme 2573 "Rethinking Disinformation" (Re:DIS)
Re:DIS is an interdisciplinary research network rethinking disinformation from an epistemic perspective.
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Disinformation is widely recognized as one of the most pressing challenges of our time. The spread of false, misleading, and manipulative content shared in the public sphere takes many forms: fake news, conspiracy theories (or narratives), AI-generated audiovisual deep fakes, misleading images and statistics, “bullshit”, rumours, and propaganda. In its Global Risk Report 2024, the World Economic Forum ranked disinformation as the top global risk – surpassing even climate change. Disinformation undermines trust in credible sources and is weaponized to influence elections, discredit political opponents, destabilize democracies, and conduct hybrid warfare.
Rethinking Disinformation (Re:DIS) addresses these challenges by providing an interdisciplinary platform for foundational research on disinformation. Re:DIS is a Priority Programme funded by the DFG (German Research Foundation).
Aims and Objectives
Interdisciplinarity Disinformation is studied across a wide range of academic disciplines, but despite the growing importance of the topic, research remains fragmented along disciplinary lines. Re:DIS provides a shared platform for developing and coordinating this research field. The varying concerns across disciplines and the use of contested terms are themselves objects of inquiry within the Priority Programme.
Epistemic Perspective Re:DIS adopts an epistemic perspective on disinformation. For pragmatic reasons, we use the term “disinformation” as an umbrella term for publicly disseminated content that worsens the epistemic situation of recipients, regardless of its truth value or the intentions behind its dissemination. As such, even content that is neither false nor shared with deceptive intent can fall under this working definition. Thus, we use the term “disinformation” in a sense that includes what is often labelled "misinformation".
Foundational Research Re:DIS focuses on foundational theoretical questions and conceptual distinctions; these have often been overlooked or prematurely treated as settled in previous projects aimed at identifying, evaluating, or combating disinformation. Through its cross-disciplinary approach, Re:DIS provides space for research that requires the integration of normative and descriptive perspectives, as well as conceptual and empirical methods.
Less Studied Phenomena In addition to addressing the standard cases of disinformation examined in previous research, Re:DIS also encourages the exploration of new or overlooked forms of disinformation, thereby highlighting the complexity and diversity of disinformation. Some cases of disinformation challenge the common emphasis on falsity, in other cases the binary between intentionality and non-intentionality proves too crude. A less one-sided diet of examples helps to confirm, refine, or challenge prevailing theories, key concepts, and assumptions across the disciplines involved.
Cartography Re:DIS will develop a conceptually rigorous, multidimensional cartography of kinds of disinformation that integrates perspectives from all relevant disciplines. The Priority Programme will equip its normative, regulatory, and empirical research with the required conceptual and theoretical distinctions. In doing so, Re:DIS aims to exert a lasting influence on the field.
Outreach & Knowledge Exchange The programme will engage in extensive outreach and establish accessible infrastructure to involve practitioners, educators, schools, and the broader public.
Coordination
Re:DIS is coordinated by Dr. Romy Jaster (Speaker), Prof. Geert Keil, and Prof. Verena Wagner at the Department of Philosophy at Humboldt University of Berlin. The steering committee further includes Prof. Roland Imhoff (Psychology; Mainz) and Prof. Wolfgang Schulz (Law; Hamburg/Berlin).
Projects
Johannes Buchheim (Law, University of Marburg) Disinformation as a challenge to freedom of opinion – The tension between evidence-based and autonomous belief-formation
Im:DIS - Implicit Disinformation: Theoretical, Linguistic and Computational Modeling of its Epistemic Effects
The Moral Underpinnings of Disinformation Acceptance in Human-AI-Interaction: The Case of Moral Alignment
SETA - Safeguarding Epistemic Trust in Adolescents: Conceptual and Policy Paths
Ralph Ewerth (Machine Learning, University of Marburg) Per:DIS: Perception of DisInformation - Analysing the Impact of Form and Content of News Video Presentations
Axel Gelfert (Philosophy, TU Berlin) DUE-FactC-Model: Designs, Nutzung & Effekte von cross-medialem Fact-Checking
Stephan Hartmann (Philosophy, LMU Munich)
The Information-Disinformation Continuum in Democracy
Resilienz gegenüber Desinformationen – Untersuchung von rechtlichen und psychologischen Konstrukten der Desinformation auf online Plattformen
Re:SEP – Rethinking Disinformation as Socio-Epistemic Practice: Digital Conspiracy Narratives Across Media Environments and Interpretative Communities
Johannes Marx (Political Science, University of Bamberg) Disinformation, Democracy and Epistemic Breakdown
Takanobu Nakamura (Linguistics, ZAS Berlin) The Evidentiality Hypothesis: Is language a factor in disinformation?
Gabriel Tarziu (Philosophy, LMU Munich) Reactive Disinformation in Climate Science: Modelling Antagonistic Environments and Epistemic Responsibility
Fang Zhao (Education, OTH Regensburg) The roles of texts and pictures in disinformation correction when corrections are presented before, during, or after exposure to disinformation
Press Releases
Press release of the DFG (in German) Press release of HU Berlin (in German/ English version)
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