Since the 2016 US presidential election, the deliberate spread of misinformation online, and on social media in particular, has generated extraordinary concern, in large part because of its potential effects on public opinion, political polarization, and ultimately democratic decision making. Recently, however, a handful of papers have argued that both the prevalence and consumption of “fake news” per se is extremely low compared with other types of news and news-relevant content. Although neither prevalence nor consumption is a direct measure of influence, this work suggests that proper understanding of misinformation and its effects requires a much broader view of the problem, encompassing biased and misleading—but not necessarily factually incorrect—information that is routinely produced or amplified by mainstream news organizations. In this paper, we propose an ambitious collective research agenda to measure the origins, nature, and prevalence of misinformation, broadly construed, as well as its impact on democracy. We also sketch out some illustrative examples of completed, ongoing, or planned research projects that contribute to this agenda.

自 2016 年美国总统大选以来，故意在网上传播错误信息，尤其是在社交媒体上，引起了极大的关注，这在很大程度上是因为其对公众舆论、政治两极分化以及最终的民主决策的潜在影响。然而，最近有几篇论文认为，与其他类型的新闻和新闻相关内容相比，“假新闻”本身的流行率和消费量都极低。虽然流行率和消费量都不是影响的直接衡量标准，但这项工作表明，正确理解错误信息及其影响需要对问题有更广泛的看法，包括经常产生或放大的有偏见和误导性——但不一定事实上不正确的信息主流新闻机构。在本文中，我们提出了一个雄心勃勃的集体研究议程，以衡量广泛解释的错误信息的起源、性质和流行程度，及其对民主的影响。我们还勾勒出一些有助于该议程的已完成、正在进行或计划中的研究项目的说明性示例。