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Fighting fake news in Europe
The European Communication Monitor (ECM) – now in its 12th year, is carried out annually by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA) and the European Association of Communication Directors (EACD).
This year’s ECM report is based on interviews with 3,096 communicators in 48 European counties.
The UK’s lead researcher is Professor Ralph Tench, from Leeds Beckett’s Leeds Business School.
“Fake news is not only a buzzword in political debates, but a daily threat for companies and other organisations across the continent and also in the UK,” said Professor Tench.
“Protecting reputation is a key task for corporate leaders and their communication advisers in today’s volatile world.
“And yet only 12 per cent of the organisations we surveyed had established advanced routines to identify threats.”
The survey revealed that fake news had the strongest impact in Russia (53 per cent), followed by Serbia, Slovenia and Poland (all more than 40 per cent).
The UK, along with France, Norway, and the Czech Republic, were the least affected (below 17 per cent).
Those most affected by fake news were government-owned, public sector and political organisations, with almost half having been affected by fake news at least once in the past year.
Social media was the main source of misleading content (81 per cent), followed by the mass media (60 per cent).
In 14 per cent of organisations, misleading content was promoted through internal media like intranets and employee social media.
Professor Tench added: “Despite this threat for reputation and brands, it is striking that one third of the communication professionals across Europe have not given closer attention to the debate.
“Although fake news was a daily occurrence at a quarter of the organisations surveyed, only 12 per cent of them had established advanced routines to identify further threats.”
Further details about the ECM are available at www.communicationmonitor.eu.