Anticipating a plausible future of disinformation for the Ministry of Health

Abstract

Context and problem statement (Chapter 1)
Disinformation, false or misleading content that is shared deliberately, can be a danger to public health. When citizens don’t follow evidence-based treatments or measures and do take non proven, unuseful or dangerous treatments (Freeman et al., 2022; Montagni et al, 2021; Prieto & González, 2021). This became clear especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. More broadly it is a danger to democracy.

Within the Ministry of Health, Welfare and Sport there are several hurdles to effectively deal with disinformation. Too narrow and present focussed problem frames are used, with little alignment and a lack of starting points for concrete interventions.

In response to these problems, my design goal is to catalyse a broader and anticipatory problem frame of disinformation, find concrete starting points for interventions dealing with disinformation and align key stakeholders.

Method
A combination of methods is made (Chapter 2). First, systemic design (Meadows, 2020), finding elements, mechanisms and starting points in a system, enables to create a broader problem frame. Second, anticipatory governance (Guston, 2014) adds the temporal dimension, creating an anticipatory problem frame. It consists of four phases. Foresight, creating plausible future images. Engagement, involving people inside the organisation to respond to the plausible future. Integration, implementation of those responses and ensemble harmonising these efforts. Third, experiential futures (Candy, 2010) enable alignment between stakeholders through future prototypes: objects as if they came from the future.

Section 1 - Foresight
Expert interviews and consultation of academic, popular ‘mainstream’ and ‘fringe’ literature is conducted (Chapter 3). This leads to a (dis)information system map (Chapter 4) showing mechanisms that influence the system like doubt, trust, crisis and polarisation. Currently, the system is unbalanced. Yet, there are leverage points where interventions can bring back balance. The second outcome is a driver and trend analysis showing how the elements in the system map might develop. A new systemic and anticipatory problem frame is proposed (Chapter 6) that reveals new threats, but also opens up possibilities to bring balance.

Section 2 - Engagement
A future scenario (Chapter 7) is written that communicates the systemic and anticipatory problem frame. Two aspects are central:
In 2033, we will live in a country with ideological splintering. Due to climate change, an extreme heatwave during the summer causes a great threat to public health.

This scenario is developed into experiential future prototypes (Chapter 8, Figure X). The future prototypes were used in a 1:1 simulation with key stakeholders in the government (Chapter 9). Participants were asked 1) to reflect on the future that was embodied in the artefacts, and 2) to suggest interventions inspired by the future prototypes. The simulation showed alignment (Chapter 10) on the new anticipatory problem frame and even sparked a shared future vision:
Becoming an empowering government based on mutual trust.

Section 3 - Integration and Ensemble
A disinformation team is initiated, together with a policy maker from the Ministry. This makes sure the results from this project can be integrated after the delivery of the thesis.