Values for Cohesion Podcast

Aslı: Hello and welcome to Values for Cohesion podcast series!

This is Dr Aslı Kandemir and I am with my co-hosts

- doctoral researcher in Education, Duygu Dogus Tandirci; and

- Digital Media and Communications analyst, Lara Tsentides.

I am the lead of this University of Birmingham project titled ‘Values for Cohesion: In the Shadow of Karagöz and Hacivat’. This important project is funded by Birmingham City Council with Community Recovery Fund of the UK Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government and it is in partnership with NASUWT Teachers’ Union and West Midlands Turkish Association.

This project seeks ways in which schools and communities can work together to rebuild resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion in the local Birmingham community and beyond. To achieve it, the project asks questions about

- what misinformation and disinformation means for school managers, teachers, and community leaders, and

- how they can be challenged to safeguard young people and communities.

In so doing, this project incorporates cultural heritage traditions such as Turkish Shadow Play called Karagöz [meaning the Black-eyed] and Hacivat [meaning The Wise].

This project tries to answer some questions, and to be able to do that, in May and June 2025, we held creative workshops, chaired roundtable discussions, and interviewed teachers and community leaders, who had been working within the education ecosystem. We actually wanted to gain a comprehensive understanding and insight into how misinformation and disinformation operate within this ecosystem.

Today, in this episode, we’re going to discuss misinformation and disinformation; in terms of what they are, how to identify them and the issues that are created from them.

Before we begin, we should remind you, our dear listeners, of our resources we’ve shared with you on the project website. Please feel free to have a look at those resources should you feel distressed with the topics discussed in this podcast series.

Duygu, Lara, I think I shall start by asking you two what misinformation and disinformation means..

Duygu: Thanks Aslı. Perhaps I can start by giving some academic and journalistic definitions of the concepts.

According to BBC, misinformation refers to fake news created by someone who is unaware that it’s fake. The mistake is simply unintentional, and it has the capability to spread quickly through social media. Whereas, disinformation is misleading news, created and made with the intention of it being false. Its purpose is often to influence people to think and act a certain way. This topic arises the important discussion of the need to think critically and question what one comes across online.

Therefore, it is also a hot topic for many academic studies from a wide range of disciplines including sociology, criminology, education studies, and journalism. A good example I’d like to share with you would be from a media and communications scholar Theodora Dame Adjin-Tettey

She published a research paper in 2022 titled ‘Combating fake news, disinformation and misinformation’. She states in her paper: [quote] Fake news is news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers. It is also sometimes referred to as information pollution, media manipulation or information warfare. Disinformation has also been defined in UNESCO’s handbook for journalism education and training, as deliberate (often orchestrated) attempts to confuse or manipulate people through delivering dishonest information to them, while misinformation is misleading information created or disseminated without manipulative or malicious intent. [unquote]

Lara: Yes, this shows that the role that intent plays in defining these terms is very important. This reminds me of another term, malinformation, can you help us break that down, Duygu?

Duygu: Yes, definitely! I’ll refer back to Adjin-Tettey and will quote from her. She says: [quote] malinformation, is the intentional dissemination of confidential information, by typically changing context, date, or time, for personal or corporate rather than public interest. [unquote] But returning back to the difference between misinformation and disinformation, Adjin-Tettey summarises it nicely and says: [quote] The two main differences between misinformation and disinformation are that: 1) fake news mimics the form of mainstream news, while disinformation does not; and 2) while disinformation is purposefully crafted to mislead, the one engaged in misinformation does not deliberately do so because they are not aware information being shared is fabricated or false. [unquote]

Lara: This is such a great quote, Duygu, thanks! It really highlights the layers to how this operates in society and gives us useful ways to look out for disinformation and misinformation. It also makes me think of the dangers that could arise.

Duygu: Yes Lara, because as Adjin-Tettey states: [quote] Disinformation (and by extension fake news) and malinformation are dangerous because of how it is deliberately orchestrated and resourced by malicious actors and how it is reinforced by digital technologies and platforms, including social networks. [unquote]

Lara: That’s right Duygu, the need to think critically and question what is encountered in social media is very important. If we don’t, significant risks to the well-being of people and society are posed. For example, the OECD highlights that misinformation, or false information, can undermine trust in democratic institutions and processes. We can see this happening increasingly among youth. If we think about being in school and how vulnerable young students can be to information discussed amongst themselves, it’s important to provide them with the tools that help them think critically and recognise what misinformation and disinformation really is.

Aslı: Well-said, Lara. In fact, this is something that we intended to address in our previous research project with my colleagues Prof Karl Kitching, Prof Reza Gholami, and Dr Shajedur Rahman. In that project we evidenced and documented this vulnerability among young people. We have recently published an opinion piece; I’m sure you are familiar with The Conversation. We were just published by them and we presented our findings there on this issue. In that research, we conducted a survey with more than 3,000 young people in year ten (which is constituted of 14-15 year-olds as you may know) in schools across England. And we found that, and presented that, 75% said that they learned most about social and political issues online, including on social media. This means that if young people are not digitally literate and critically engaged with social and political issues, they may be negatively affected by false information and stereotypes. Our study found, though, that some of these young people were wary of getting information from social media outlets such as TikTok and YouTube, and they were inclined to crosscheck what they had seen on social media with news journalism as a reliable source as you may agree, Lara and Duygu.

In Values for Cohesion project, we also asked teachers and school leaders what they would say about the change that they’d like to see in tackling misinformation for instance, not only locally in schools but also, broadly in society. A male British-Asian Assistant HT answered this question by emphasising how important it is to prevent students from [quote] [unquote] ‘going down a rabbit hole’.

He said: ‘I think, in terms of school, it’s making sure that we are covering misinformation as part of our personal development, our PSHE session, but going more in depth with it like, obviously, technology changes. I remember when the first mobile phone came out to what it is now, the mobile phone was literally to receive and make calls. Nowadays, that’s the secondary of it. The primary is literally apps, Facebook and all that. […] He then continues: In terms of Artificial Intelligence coming out now, we had a safeguarding audit several weeks ago and the visiting official said, “Have you talked about AI?” I said we've talked about AI in terms of careers. She goes, “You need to talk about it in terms of misinformation, fake news, they are the two key things because our youngsters are, she said, so technology advanced compared to when we were younger, they know the loopholes, they know how to get through towards websites what we couldn’t do before.”’

Lara: I can second this quote, Aslı. From my own research, I know how easy it is to fall down a rabbit hole. For example, Scholar Jonas Kaiser highlights the harm that algorithms cause in facilitating this. I am currently writing a paper on it and I argue that hate speech is increasingly platformed under the guise of free speech. Then this normalises the over-circulation of harmful expressions towards others.

Aslı: This can have big risks, Lara, so it’s important for educators and families to understand how to prevent this. Do you remember the Asst HT that I just mentioned?.. He discussed how they strive to equip students with the correct tools to break down misinformation. For example, during our roundtable discussions participant teachers mentioned how political ideology orchestrates disinformation through myths about, for instance, immigrants. A participant said and I’ll quote their words: [quote] [A political party leader] said if you had 10 to 15 men from different cultures come to live on your street, move into a house, [whilst] you’re getting up at 5am to work on a building site, [and] you’ve got to pay your taxes [whereas] those 10 to 15 men are here illegally, they get free dental, free money to spend and get full bed and breakfast paid for. And then this party leader says, “Isn’t that unfair?” That’s his politics… [unquote] ... COMMENTS MADE… We should question what we hear in this example, what’s wrong with it? What happens if we do not question this? Would you agree?!

Lara: Yeah, we see this happening frequently over social media. This can be a catalyst for actions that occur in society. Think about the 2024 summer riots that took place in several cities in England... COMMENTS MADE… As a Digital Media and Communications analyst, I know the importance of looking at how the digital landscape intersects with reality. For example, scholar Bethany Usher suggests that digital media and interconnected technologies do construct our political realities such as what we’ve seen in those riots. This just goes to show how social media discourse is mirrored in everyday life. Students should be encouraged more in schools to question and reflect after seeing an example like this.

Duygu: It’s so interesting to see how this issue unfolds within an educational environment too. The British-Asian Assistant HT we interviewed said [quote] ‘every parent’s got a mobile phone for their daughters and sons to be safe’ [unquote]. But from discussing this topic, we can see the safety risks that are caused by this. With young people mainly downloading social media when starting secondary school and even younger, misinformation and disinformation can effectively occupy their screens.

Lara: This is where digital literacy comes into play, isn’t it? Currently, in the area of media and communications, we’re focusing on the impact of Artificial Intelligence – it’s increasingly on the rise and becoming harder for many to identify false information when especially fact-checking policies are helpful to overcome this issue only to a certain degree. In my paper, I also focus on the choice of digital media platforms to lift fact-checking in early 2025. We can see how impactful politics is in the ‘behind-the-scenes’ of social media. I know this through research, but these policies aren’t necessarily explicit for school management and teaching staff, or even pupils in schools.

Duygu: What you’re saying goes to show the importance and need to fact-check. Children are curious. They consistently question and this is such a great trait. And we need to continue to encourage this within learning. Educators can provide their students with sites that provide reliable answers to their questions regarding fact-checking. In Values for Cohesion Project, we also prepare our Misinformation and Disinformation Toolkit with a Teachers’ Guidebook and a Community Guidebook, which will be used in schools and communities.

Outro:

Aslı: By the way, Duygu and Lara, I might not have shared this information with you but the toolkit and these two guidebooks that Duygu just mentioned will be shared with Community Cohesion Taskforce of the UK Government. They are very interested in seeing these resources, to be able to be disseminated with schools and community organisations. Therefore, it is very exciting and very important, I think, to be able to produce such resources. So we’re looking forward to sharing this Toolkit with you all in the near future, Dear Listeners! So watch this space. But Today, we were able to unpack the layers of misinformation and disinformation and apply these concepts to a learning environment in order to develop a shared understanding for teachers and community leaders. We hope this helps better-equip pupils and educators, as well as community leaders, with effective ways on how to address, understand, and explain these terms.

Lara: I know this has definitely helped me!

Aslı: What do you think, Duygu?

Duygu: Yeah, it’s really helpful.

Aslı: Thank you all for listening, catch us next time to hear more on how we can build resilience, mutual trust, and community cohesion through an inclusive curriculum.

All: Bye…

Adjin-Tettey, T. D. (2022) Combating fake news, disinformation, and misinformation: Experimental evidence for media literacy education. Cogent Arts & Humanities, 9:1, 1-17, DOI: 10.1080/23311983.2022.2037229.

Kaiser, J., and Rauchfleisch, A. (2019) The implications of venturing down the rabbit hole. Internet Policy Review [online]. Available from: <https://policyreview.info/articles/news/implications-venturing-down-rabbit-hole/1406>.

Kitching, K., Kandemir, A. and Rahman, Md. S. (2026). Teens see social media more than school as the place to learn about race and faith [online], The Conversation.

Kitching, K., Gholami, R., Kandemir, A. and Rahman, Md. S. (2025). ‘Free’ Expression at School? The Making of Youth Engagements with Race and Faith. Final Project Report, Birmingham: University of Birmingham.

Potter, W. J. (2022) Analysis of definitions of media literacy. Journal of Media Literacy Education, 14:2, 27-43. https://doi.org/10.23860/JMLE-2022-14-2-3.

Usher, B. (2025) Defining Networked Constructed Reality: Hyperpopulism, Hypercriminality, and the 2024 UK “Far-Right Riots”. Emerging Media, 3:4, 562-581, DOI: 10.1177/27523543251398126.

Here is a list of resources and organisations that you might find useful in further thinking about the issues raised during the podcast and in getting support if distressed.

1. NASUWT Guiding Principles on Student Voice
2. National Education Union Framework for Developing an Anti-Racist Approach
3. Podcast and Infographic from Prof Judith Pace on Learning to Teach Controversial Issues
4. Scottish Government National Improvement Hub Recognising and Realising Children’s Rights: A Professional Learning Resource to Promote Self-Evaluation and Improvement Planning
5. Unicef Rights Respecting Schools Resources
6. Racism and Mental Health 
7. Fake news and mental health - BBC Bitesize
8. Google Fact Check Tools 
9. BBC Verify – Fact Check Tool
10. Online Misinformation & the UK Riots - Educate Against Hate
11. Youth Engagement with Race and Faith at School Project Website
12. Contact a Samaritan