{"id":14547,"date":"2024-12-19T13:08:42","date_gmt":"2024-12-19T12:08:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/people-need-tools-to-navigate-in-the-informational-chaos"},"modified":"2024-12-19T13:08:42","modified_gmt":"2024-12-19T12:08:42","slug":"people-need-tools-to-navigate-in-the-informational-chaos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/people-need-tools-to-navigate-in-the-informational-chaos","title":{"rendered":"People need tools to navigate in the informational chaos"},"content":{"rendered":"
Founded in 2009, CDAC Network is a global alliance of organisations working to ensure that people affected by disasters can access trustworthy information and communicate. Helen McElhinney, Executive Director, explains how fast the needs of these communities are changing in the current digital era.<\/strong><\/p>\n

CDAC Network brings together UN agencies, the Red Cross\/Red Crescent Movement, local and international NGOs, media development and communication organisations to provide reliable information and communication means to disaster-affected communities, currently in Occupied Palestinian territories, Sudan or Ukraine. Based on your experience, which type of information is mainly needed for these communities?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Helen McElhinney: Information during crises is truly a lifeline. In moments of extreme vulnerability, people need to know where to find safety and how to access urgent assistance like food, water and medical help. But it doesn\u2019t stop there. People need to be able to connect with each other, to find out where their loved ones are \u2013 that kind of connection and communication is a basic human need.\u00a0At CDAC Network, we see communication as aid. Accurate, trustworthy information is essential for helping people make lifesaving decisions, and safe, accessible, two-way communication is critical to enable people to connect with one another, hold aid providers accountable and make the voices of the people heard. Since the early days of our work following the 2010 Haiti earthquake, CDAC has focused on ensuring these \u201cinformation airways\u201d are open and reliable, so communities aren\u2019t left in the dark.<\/p>\n

Based on recent experience, what are the major changes in the information needs of those communities? Has the issue shifted from lack of information to navigating information overload and misinformation?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Absolutely, and this shift has been dramatic. When CDAC was founded 15 years ago, communities were often struggling with an information vacuum during crises. Now, thanks to the ubiquity of social media and messaging platforms, it\u2019s usually the opposite problem \u2013 an overwhelming flood of content, much of it unreliable and sometimes even dangerous.\u00a0This is exacerbated in situations where trust in institutions and \u2018official\u2019 information sources is low. For example, our work in Sudan has highlighted that people caught in the conflict are overwhelmingly reliant on their peers for information, usually via Facebook and WhatsApp. These connections are really important for solidarity, support and mutual aid, but can also help spread misinformation \u2013 however well-intentioned. For instance, we\u2019ve seen potentially risky medical misinformation being spread, as well as false reports of attacks on villages creating unnecessary panic and displacement.\u00a0There\u2019s also the deliberate weaponisation of disinformation, which has always been a part of conflict but is now able to be generated and spread at huge speed, scale and relatively low cost thanks to digital technologies. Harmful disinformation now presents a very real and devastating protection risk. Again in Sudan, we\u2019ve heard recently how false accusations spread online have led to attacks on mutual aid operations and volunteers and, horrifyingly, even resulted in deaths.\u00a0AI-enabled disinformation further fuels these risks. Generative AI tools can now produce vast amounts of synthetic content \u2013 seemingly realistic images, videos and fake news narratives that spread at terrifying speed and can make it nearly impossible to discern fact from falsehood. This in turn further erodes trust.\u00a0What people need now is not just more information, but support, tools and digital literacy to help them navigate this new information landscape and identify reliable information sources amid the chaos.<\/p>\n

In your opinion, how should the media and information provider organizations adapt to provide the needed information, at the right time, through the right channel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Media and other information providers need to be more agile than ever in crisis settings. Crucially, fact-checked information needs to be as compelling and rapidly deployed as the viral misinformation it aims to counter. This presents a challenge \u2013 striking the balance between fast information delivery and verifying content in a way that maintains trust \u2013 but it\u2019s one we can meet through better collaboration between media, humanitarian actors and communities.\u00a0Localised, culturally appropriate communication is also key \u2013 and that includes listening as well as transmitting. Often, the best way to counter misinformation isn\u2019t simply putting out \u2018the truth\u2019 but making sure people feel heard and acknowledged, as well as aiming to understand why people are turning to alternative information sources. To do this, we must meet people where they are \u2013 communicate using the channels and influencers they trust, in the formats and languages they feel most comfortable using.\u00a0In the longer term, we need to build resilience against harmful misinformation. This includes upgrading our approach to media literacy so that we\u2019re supporting communities to navigate the new frontiers of the digital landscape, including generative AI. It also means strengthening our independent media ecosystem. CDAC Network brings together media development members with humanitarians, and we regularly see that media are ahead in their approach to building safer information environments. There\u2019s much that the humanitarian sector can learn from them and do to support their work.<\/p><\/div>\n

\n
This extract is taken from the 14th issue of Mediation, entitled “Adapting to changing information need”, which you can find attached up to this article.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Founded in 2009, CDAC Network is a global alliance of organisations working to ensure that people affected by disasters can access trustworthy information and communicate. Helen McElhinney, Executive Director, explains how fast the needs of these communities are changing in the current digital era. CDAC Network brings together UN agencies, the Red Cross\/Red Crescent Movement, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":14548,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[196],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14547","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-our-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-21 00:12:01","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14547","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14547"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14547\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14548"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14547"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14547"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.hirondelle.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14547"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}