Special Section - Beyond Verification: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Artifices of Authenticity
Published: July 20, 2026
Issue: Vol. 20 (2026)
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How can something false be experienced as authentic? This Special Section on Beyond Verification: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Artifices of Authenticity, guest-edited by Anthony Burton, Alberto Lusoli, Ganaele Langlois, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Esther Weltevrede, explores the stakes of authenticity (and its artifices) in the post-truth era. The papers included in this Special Section show how authenticity is the result of the complex processes of technical infrastructures, intensities of engagement, user experiences, and cultural practices. It addresses the orchestration of mis/disinformation through techno-cultural and techno-affective flows that combine network trackers with emotional bursts, algorithmic recommendations with national fantasies, and collective wounds and trauma with a desire for belonging. It investigates the distinction between veracity and authenticity, revealing where fact-checking fails and how dis/misinformation spreads through data and its networked infrastructures, by deploying methodologies from digital methods to media theory, and from large-scale content analysis to speculative and participatory methods.
The Special Section highlights how a diversity of approaches to affect and authenticity furthers the study of mis- and disinformation by highlighting the various intersections between perceptions, communities, and disclosures. It also stresses how different methods can approach these questions while existing in tension with each other, from quantitative and mixed-methods approaches to theoretical examinations.
We invite you to read these articles that published in the International Journal of Communication on July 20, 2026.
Beyond Verification: Misinformation, Disinformation, and the Artifices of Authenticity–Introduction
Alberto Lusoli, Anthony Burton, Esther Weltevrede, Ganaele Langlois, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
IYKYK: Authenticity of Diasporic Media and Information From Vietnamese YouTube Influencers
Sarah Nguyễn, Celestine Le, Rachel E. Moran
App Time: The Dual-Layered Logic of Appification
Esther Weltevrede, Anthony Burton
Authentic Expertise: Influencers, Misinformation, and Authenticity in the Online Cancer Community
Victoria O’Meara, Esteban Morales, Jaigris Hodson
Ambient Propaganda: Tuning-in to WarTok During Russia’s Invasion of Ukraine
Boris Noordenbos, Marc Tuters
Portraits of Mis-/Disinformation Through the Research Persona Method
Shahpour Akhavi, Rory Sharp
Post-Truth Spaces: Studying Authenticity and Influence on the Internet
Richard Rogers, Kamila Koronska
Inauthentic Authenticity: Astroturfing to Generate True Affect Using Fakery
Camille Alloing, Vincent Fournier, Valérie Reid, Sara Germain, Olivier Turbide, Stéphanie Yates
Repetition, Rumination, and Determinism: Exploring the Temporal Logic of QAnon
Sara Bimo
Algorithmic, But Polyphonic: On the Authenticity of News Stories Covering Anti-Asian Racism
Prem Xavier Sylvester, Sage Hughes, Matt Canute, Javier Ruiz-Soler, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun
Affect, Certainty, and Mis/Disinformation—Afterword
Ganaele Langlois, Rory Sharp
Silvio Waisbord, Editor
Kady Bell-Garcia, Managing Editor
Chi Zhang, Managing Editor, Special Sections
Andrew Taylor, Webmaster
Anthony Burton, Alberto Lusoli, Ganaele Langlois, Wendy Hui Kyong Chun, and Esther Weltevrede, Guest Editors
