identifying key issues that cut across different regions with regards to the impact of information disorder in the Global South, an agenda for further research was developed. This agenda builds on the connections created through this project, with the aim of overcoming the fragmentation that currently characterizes the research field. 3. CONTEXTS If information disorder is understood as not only a technological, but also a multi-levelled, complex, and evolving sociocultural phenomenon, dis- and misinformation needs to be understood within the context of social dynamics and material circumstances. The Global South experience can be instructive, as we understand information disorder not as a universally homogenous phenomenon, but as a contextual one which requires contextually relevant responses. To understand how information disorder is embedded within these regions, four contexts are of particular importance, namely media, social, political, and geopolitical contexts. 3.1 MEDIA CONTEXTS Media landscapes in the Global South are often characterized by high concentration. The media often have a history of being state-owned or state-controlled, and are marked by patrimonial relationships between journalists and powerful social and political actors. Their news agendas are therefore often captured by social elites. Across these regions, newsrooms are under-resourced; journalists work under precarious economic conditions and are frequently the target of harassment and attacks. As has been the case elsewhere, indications are that low levels of media trust in the South are linked to perceived exposure to disinformation, as a study in African countries has shown (Wasserman and Madrid-Morales 2019). While notions such as “echo chambers” or “filter bubbles” have been considered novel phenomena in recent digital media studies, the contemporary media landscape in African contexts often reflects much older stratifications of class, language, race, and ethnicity, carried over from colonialism (Maweu 2021). This historical legacy of fragile media systems is being exacerbated by global neoliberalism: The South represents important emerging markets for digital platform companies, which are acting as gatekeepers of information at the same time as I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH they are functioning as amplifiers of disinformation. As part of Facebook’s Free Basics service in several parts of the Global South, including Africa (Nothias 2020) and Latin America (Valente 2021), users get zero-rated access to a limited number of internet sites. Although it can be argued that these users at least have some access to online resources, this may also mean that users in this “walled garden” are exposed to information disorder while having limited opportunities to corroborate the information they receive. Additionally, although Facebook collaborates with third-party fact checkers in the Global South (Nothias 2020), the platform’s own fact checking activities are hugely skewed towards English-language content in the Global North (Freedland 2021). 3.2 SOCIAL CONTEXTS A socio-technical approach to information disorder requires that we focus not only on media landscapes and digital platforms which facilitate the disorder, but that social dynamics such as cultural histories, economic inequalities, audience perceptions, and citizens’ interactions with information disorder be considered as well. Although developmental approaches to the combating of information disorder in these regions have often emphasized strategies such as media literacy, ignorance is not necessarily the main driving force behind the problem. Research has shown that while media users in Africa often suspect or know that information is false, they share it anyway because of sociocultural reasons such as a community orientation (“I have a duty to warn Research has shown that while others”) or satire and humor media users in Africa often suspect (“Just for fun”) (Madridor know that information is false, Morales et al. 2021). Social and economic factors also they share it anyway because play a role, as do questions of of sociocultural reasons such as access to and relative trust in community orientation (“I have a media. Rural communities use duty to warn others”) or satire and social networks less than their humor (“Just for fun”). urban counterparts; they rely more on opinion leaders, local experts, and networks such as family, community, or religious structures (Tully et al. 2021). When it comes to trusting information about Covid-19 vaccines, South African media users express greater trust in family than in government or social media (Wasserman and Madrid-Morales 2021). This study therefore also set out to understand these sociocultural dynamics that shape information disorder in the Global South. Introduction – 1 4