DESIVE² – Desinformationsverhalten verstehen (“understanding disinformation behavior”) is a BMBF-financed research project with a budget of €1.33 million that began in late 2021 and run until the end of 2024. Coordinated by the Web-Science department at Kiel University, it joins the ZBW – Leibniz Information Centre for Economics and the civic-tech group Grenzenlos Digital e.V. The consortium studies how health-related falsehoods borrow scientific language and design to appear trustworthy. Work packages collect large samples of German-language web and social-media posts, code the authority signals they display (citations, graphs, expert photos) and run survey experiments that test which features increase perceived credibility. Planned outputs include an open taxonomy of “pseudo-scientific provenance,” methodological papers and practical recommendations for journalists, fact-checkers and patient organizations. A public blog documents interim findings. DESIVE² thus positions itself as a bridge between communication research and agents who must decide, daily, whether a medical claim looks like science or simply imitates it.
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DESIVE²
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)...See all
German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) See less
"ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel", Humboldt University...See all
"ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, Kiel", Humboldt University of Berlin See less
Commentary:
DESIVE²’s focus on faux-academic styling fills a gap in Germany’s crowded misinformation landscape, where partisan frameworks dominate research. Its mixed design of large-scale content coding plus perception experimentation promises empirical rigor. Industry partners are absent, which shelters the study from platform leverage but also means access to private engagement data is unlikely; conclusions about reach may rest on incomplete public traces. The initiative targets practical users – health reporters, patient groups. BMBF framing stresses "understanding" over "intervention," so critics may view DESIVE² as another mapping exercise. Yet most important to this academic orientation is the more subtle framing of the public's justified curiosity and skepticism regarding medical information; for DESIVE², misinformation is to be attributed to social media alone, and it is to be rectified by reporting and verification undertaken by qualified experts. The prospect of corrupted expertise is not on the radar.
DESIVE²’s focus on faux-academic styling fills a gap in Germany’s crowded misinformation landscape, where partisan frameworks dominate research. Its mixed design of large-scale content coding plus perception experimentation promises empirical rigor. Industry partners are absent, which shelters the study from platform leverage but also means access to private engagement data is unlikely; conclusions about reach may rest on incomplete public traces. The initiative targets practical users – health reporters, patient groups. BMBF framing stresses "understanding" over "intervention," so critics may view DESIVE² as another mapping exercise. Yet most important to this academic orientation is the more subtle framing of the public's justified curiosity and skepticism regarding medical information; for DESIVE², misinformation is to be attributed to social media alone, and it is to be rectified by reporting and verification undertaken by qualified experts. The prospect of corrupted expertise is not on the radar.
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