FAKE NEWS DURING NATURAL DISASTER: INFORMATION FLOW, NEWS PRACTICES AND FACT-CHECKING IN INDONESIA

After an earthquake and tsunami struck Palu city and its surrounding areas in Indonesia on September 28, 2018, fake news were rampantly circulated on online platforms. To address lack of studies on how fake news during natural disaster is handled through working process of news and fact-check professionals in Indonesia, this study aims to examine how fake news during natural disaster were handled by news and fact-check professionals in Indonesia. Primarily built from multilevel analyses of Hierarchy of Influences Model (HOI), this study analyzed four dimensions that shaped news information. Key codes for this study are under individual factors (i.e. personal trait and professional value), routine (i.e. information gathering, information processing, information distribution and fact-checking), organizational factors (i.e. editorial policies and organizational culture) and social institution (government and third party fact-checking organization). Through a mixed-method approach, web-observation examines the information flow of selected Palu fake news cases to provide overview on development of each case, including responses from government, media, fact-check organizations and the public. Next, in-depth interview will examine how news professionals from both traditional news media and web-only news media along with how third party fact-checkers handled Palu fake news. Theoretically, this study expands HOI’s multilevel applications to investigate how news and fact-check professionals in Indonesia handled Palu fake news. Practically, the findings will shed light for news and fact-check professionals to assess and improve their practices in handling fake news. This work-in-progress research will finish data collection in March 2019, followed by data analysis in April. &nbsp