Understanding the Global Rise of Fact-Checking

Abstract

The global spread of fact-checking initiatives and projects around the world reflects, at first glance, a neo-institutionalist point of view: that is, the potentially global adoption of an idea or practice on behalf of universal principles. The framework rests on a concept of modernity that “connotes the organization of society and the nation-state around universalized notions of progress and justice, as built up of rationalized organizations and associations, and as composed of autonomous, rational, and purposive individual citizens”. In terms of an increasingly prevalent leitmotif for social actors on various levels (states, organizations, and individuals), it implies and thus reinforces the implementation of these principles and institutions, which in turn shape social structure and human behavior.