When facts are disputed and experts delegitimised, the term 'populism' may apply to truths and to untruths. Michael Hameleers argues that populist ideas are often strategically communicated to emphasise a divide between congruent truths and incongruent lies. This only serves to emphasise the idea of a divide between ordinary people and corrupt political elites
Michael Hameleers explains his team's experimental results: that COVID-19 disinformation is most credible – and dangerous – when it stays close to objective facts. This in turn has implications for how disinformation can be countered.
Assistant Professor in Political Communication and Journalism, Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR)
Michael’s research interests include populism, disinformation, and corrective information.
He has published extensively on the impact of populism, (visual) disinformation, fact-checking, media literacy interventions and (media) trust in leading peer-reviewed journals.
Michael is part of the Dutch/Belgian EDMO hub on misinformation and fact-checking, which aims to understand and implement solutions to combat disinformation using a large interdisciplinary network of scientists, fact-checkers, journalists and media policy makers.
He applies a wide variety of qualitative and quantitative research methods to understand the intersections between media, politics, and society.
