PART 2 ACADEMIC OVERVIEW 1. INTRODUCTION The term “information disorder” has become widely used to refer to both mis- and disinformation (Wardle and Derakhshan 2017). Disinformation refers to content disseminated with a harmful intent, such as to spark fear amongst the audience or to undermine the security of individuals or entities. Misinformation, on the other hand, is fabricated information disseminated without malicious intent (Ireton and Posetti 2018, 7). In the MENA region, information disorder, misinformation, and disinformation are still subsumed under the wider term of “fake news,” which is defined as news that does not meet the criteria of credible news and which is spread without verification (Ireton and Posetti 2018, 7). Censorship of traditional media prevails in the MENA region. Blum (2005) describes the Arab model as “patriotic,” as the censored media play the role of promoting governmental programs and the national development agenda, and support governmental decisions in all cases. Yet, with the arrival of the internet the Arab region witnessed a transformation: from governments having a monopoly on information to an abundance of information being available (Al Najjar 2021, 56). The rate of internet usage at home in Arab states is above the world average, as 58.9 percent of households had access to the internet in 2021 (Gray 2021, 5). The internet has reshaped the media landscape in the Arab region. In the early stages, blogs in particular gave users who were not journalists the opportunity to reach out to an audience. Thereafter, the emergence of social I N FO R M ATI O N D I SO R D ER IN THE GLOBA L SOUTH media created new platforms where photos, news, and videos could be posted by citizen journalists, which eventually led to the erosion of legacy media’s monopoly on authority (Tando, Lim, and Ling 2017). Arab audiences tend to consume news heavily on social media, as the consumption of news is ranked second of preferred online activities (Allagui and Akdenizli 2019, 1295). The unstructured nature of social media exacerbates the rapid spread of misinformation and disinformation. Consumers of social media are generally aware of the risks of fake news; 43 percent of respondents surveyed in a study indicated that they were very worried about fake news online (Allagui and Akdenizli 2019, 1295). Over time, the ambit of social media was extended to political affairs, which contributed to the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions and led authoritarian regimes and their opponents to shift to a strategy of targeting social media through torrents of bots, trolls, and rumors. This was evident during the Gulf Crisis of 2017, when social media turned into a battlefield for political propaganda as the opposing parties launched disinformation campaigns against each other (Al Najjar 2021, 61). In the same year, an Arab social media report was issued to describe the age of social media as the age of fake news, noting that fake accounts on Facebook have increased over time (Mohammed Bin Rashid School of Government 2017). Fake news is not limited to political issues. In the wake of Covid-19, the WHO criticized the rapid spread of fake news on social media, describing it as an “infodemic,” the danger of which should not be underestimated, as it undermines the efforts of health authorities (WHO n.d.). The Arab countries Middle East and North Africa – 61