February 28 to March 4, 2022
Partners: Effy, Faiza, Jacob, Mita, Applied Works
Brief: Design an experience that communicates the importance of fighting misinformation.
Visualizing the Network
It was time to break out of our linear, binary mode of thinking and start looking at the more organic, entangled nature of networks. Misinformation existed within an ecosystem. We wanted to zero in on the chain reaction or snowball effect of misinformation.
We started to think of all the different ways to visualize this. Would it be like an image getting progressively blurrier due to different inputs? Or would it be more like colored interwoven threads?
Some other ideas we had were water blotting and ink stains, but we decided not to go in this direction because it would be difficult to trace the user's pathway through the ink blot.
Infiltration/Hacking
We also spent some time trying to think of ways to possibly infiltrate or hack misinformation networks. How could we intercept and put the right information out there?
Some ideas that we had for infiltrating misinformation were:
adding digital colored dots on misinformation online
an attack bot that can break down conspiracy theories, deconstruct them
blacking out key words that are not factually checked in health vaccine news
adding our own nugget of misinformation to online forums and seeing how it spreads (ethically gray area)'
moving typography to show how information gets warped over time
However, the more we thought about it, the more we wondered how effective these methods could really be. Especially when taking a look at real world examples like Twitter and Instagram, where the negative feedback loop of Covid information labels does very little to decrease the spread of misinformation.
We would also have to tread carefully around the issue of censorship. Who decides what gets censored, as in the age-old question of who watches the watchmen?
Networked Systems
Returning to the brief: we looked closely at the phrase: "systems that generate and distribute inaccurate information"
How exactly did the exchange of misinformation happen?
A part of the person receiving the information has to be receptive to the person giving the misinformation. The more the misinformation is repeated, the more the person believes it [1].
From the peer-to-peer exchange, there are multiple decisions across multiple vectors. It is not a flat plane, but rather, something without bounds, without center.
Clay
We started experimenting with different colored clay. Each participant had one color of clay. They would then turn to the person next to them and say a statement about Covid. If the person agreed with them, then they would take a piece of clay from them. If not, they would not take a piece of clay. Eventually, the clay turned into a large mult-colored mass.
Analysis
However, there were several errors in this methodology. Once again, the process was too linear. We were merely showing how information travels, rather than the exponential effect of misinformation.
The test group was also skewed, as most were design students who were most likely to have a certain level of media literacy. How would we show how misinformation travels in other communities?
Further, there was little room for nuance or for showing levels of belief in the statements.
Excursion to Science Museum for Inspiration
We decided to head to the Science Museum for inspiration with data visualization and interactive design.
We really liked the dissolving typography in this exhibit:
As well as the ability to show different levels with this interactive personality test:
This eventually led us to thinking about color gradients and bleeding colors.
Even though some of us wanted to head in the direction of gradients, somehow we ended up going back to the idea of threading around Covid headlines. This is something we had to negotiate as a group, and it was clear that some of us had different working styles.
Some preferred to only work on fully-fleshed out ideas, whereas others liked to build from the ground up and see what happens. Eventually, the solid idea won out in the face of the looming deadline, so we continued building in that direction.
References:
Scheufele, D.A. and Krause, N.M. (2019) ‘Science Audiences, Misinformation, andFake News’, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1805871115
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