ID: 2187
Presenting Author: Sebastián Urresta
Session: 740 - When misinformation spreads faster than facts: Social Strategies in LATAM
Status: approve
Time plays a crucial role in communication narratives: while official information is developed and subjected to business processes and dynamics, disinformation rapidly takes hold in the community
In contexts of high social and political complexity, such as those in LATAM, rumors, disinformation, and fake news spreads faster than the capacity of businesses and social groups to generate communications and disseminate accurate and truthful technical information. Given this situation, time plays a crucial role in communication narratives: while official information is developed and subjected to business processes and dynamics, disinformation rapidly takes hold in the community, exploiting emotions, playing on expectations, local history, rumors of nearby projects, and, above all, the existence of weakened trust, lack of legitimacy, and weak local governance. Given this disproportion between the generation of misinformation in the community and the project's communication efforts, the company and its social teams tend to concentrate their resources on demystifying, responding to rumors, and damage control. This transforms communication into a reactive exercise of defense and objection, neglecting a communication strategy that builds a new narrative. The proposed solution to address the challenge of misinformation is to build strong relationships through community meetings, working groups with community leaders, the development of a robust and contextually appropriate mechanism for handling complaints and grievances with follow-up on each case, and above all, the call for genuine participation to co-create solutions, alternatives, and scenarios that offer mutual benefits, achieving sustainable results, gaining the trust of social actors, and building legitimacy.
Senior communicator and consultant with over 16 years of experience in social development, sustainability, and resettlement processes