Researchers from MediaLab, ISCTE-IUL’s Media Laboratory, have analysed in an opinion article the main techniques being used by disinformation creators. In an article in the portugueses Público newspaper, Gustavo Cardoso and José Moreno point out that each country has its own topics of choice, but that immigration has become a cross-cutting issue. In common, there is a dehumanisation of the other.
The article, published as part of a collaboration between PÚBLICO and MediaLab, identified the disinformative narrative, repeated to exhaustion, that immigrants receive subsidies as soon as they arrive in Portugal. And depending on the country, different origins are chosen to denigrate.
In some countries, especially in Eastern Europe, the immigrants targeted by disinformation are Ukrainians fleeing war, in other countries it’s Turks or those from North Africa, in others, as in Portugal in recent months, it’s those from the Indian subcontinent – Bangladesh, Nepal, India or Pakistan.
Gustavo Cardoso is IBERIFIER’s coordinator in Portugal and José Moreno researcher at IBERIFIER.
