Media systems and misinformation

This chapter considers the relationships between the production, circulation, use and governance of misinformation and the characteristics of media systems. This provides the basis for assessing practices, arrangements and impacts for comparative analysis of media and political systems. However, bringing together misinformation and media systems also poses a series of challenges and opportunities. Mapping misinformation within and across media systems set a variety of challenges for theoretical and empirical analysis, taking full account of such features as the location, range of agencies, actors and automated processes at work. Specific challenges surrounding misinformation practices connect with broader sets of challenges for media systems analysis such as relating transnational, transcultural and national processes. So, this chapter considers some key questions: what is to be gained by incorporating analysis of misinformation into frameworks for media systems analysis? What challenges does the study of misinformation pose for media systems analysis? How might the study of media systems be developed to include and advance comparative analysis of the production and consumption of misinformation and disinformation?