ID: 2190
Presenting Author: Renato Urresta
Session: 740 - When misinformation spreads faster than facts: Social Strategies in LATAM
Status: pending
When information is not clear, timely, understandable, and complete, communities often try to fill these gaps with their own interpretations, rumors, or narratives
In Latin America, social realities are broadly complex, encompassing diverse issues that inevitably impact project dynamics. In these contexts, a lack of clarity in communication can affect the stability of projects. Imprecise messages, incomplete information, or communication efforts that are not aligned with social dynamics can facilitate the spread of misinformation. When information is not clear, timely, understandable, and complete, communities often try to fill these gaps with their own interpretations, rumors, or narratives that appeal mostly to emotional espects, which can ultimately generate uncertainty and distrust. In situations where mechanisms are procedural and communication actions must pass through several levels of review before reaching social actors, misinformation arises not as a manipulative activity, but as a response to a lack of clarity, transparency, accessibility, and consistency in institutional communication. When this occurs, teams tend to adopt a reactive stance, refuting and clarifying facts. Therefore, efforts are focused on counteracting the effects, rather than addressing the structural causes that generate distrust and creating robust communication strategies that promote a direct, transparent, and constant flow of information with the community. The proposal is to address misinformation through the co-design of a collaborative participation and governance mechanism, which allows for anticipating perceptions and strengthening mutual understanding between communities and companies.
International Leader in Sustainability with 17 years of experience in designing and implementing population resettlement processes in complex contexts