Prebunking
While debunking or fact-checking is an important tactic to address information risks, the technique is reactive and often overcome by the speed and virality of misinformation, disinformation and hate speech. Pre-bunking is a preventative measure that aims to prepare audiences to recognize and resist information risks.
Narratives the invoke misinformation, disinformation and/or hate speech often reuse familiar tactics and tropes, making it easier to spot patterns and anticipate future instances. Pre-bunking focuses less on the origins of narratives and more on teaching people about the rhetorical techniques being used to manipulate them and equips them to spot and refute such manipulation to build resilience against future attempts.
Key Points
Prebunking messages apply a structured three-part formula:
- Emotional warning where users are alerted that there are impending efforts to manipulate them
- Microdose where users see example(s) of manipulative messaging to identify it in the future.
- Refutation where users are quipped to spot and refute a manipulative message.
RESOURCE
A Practical Guide to Prebunking Misinformation
Developed by Jigsaw (Google) and BBC Media Action, this resource is intended for practitioners interested in defending against misleading and manipulative information. It documents the foundations of prebunking, aiming to translate academic research into a practical how-to guide that enables groups and individuals with no prior knowledge of behavioral psychology to deploy their own prebunking interventions.