SourceWatch:Purpose

< About SourceWatch

SourceWatch is a free encyclopedia of people, issues, and groups shaping the public agenda, including activist groups and government agencies but especially public relations firms, front groups, and industry-friendly experts that try to manipulate public opinion. It catalogues descriptions and details of as well as the criticisms that are made of these groups from different perspectives.

A number of individuals and organizations have previously attempted to compile similar guides and directories, but the sheer number of ever-changing groups has prevented anyone from developing a comprehensive list. The goal of SourceWatch is to create the largest and most up-to-date guide in history, both in terms of breadth and depth. We also want SourceWatch to become a reliable resource. It is an ambitious goal, and it may take many years to achieve it.

What is "disinformation"?

Disinformation is deliberately misleading information announced publicly or leaked by a government, intelligence agency, corporation or other entity for the purpose of influencing opinions or perceptions.

Unlike misinformation, which is also a form of wrong information, disinformation is produced by people who intend to deceive their audience.

A group might plant disinformation in reports, in press releases, in public statements or in practically any other routine, occasional or unusual communique. Disinformation can also be leaked, or covertly released to a source who can be trusted to repeat the false information.

A common disinformation tactic is to mix truth, half-truths, and lies. Disinformants sometimes seek to gain the confidence of their audience through emotional appeals or by using semi-neutral language interlaced with threads of disinformation.

It may be easier to ask and answer questions like "at what point does opinion or advocacy become disinformation?", "can history or ideology remain simplified without being disinforming?", and "what concept equals what other concept in this opinion, advocacy, history, or ideology?" Such distinctions are studied in the fields of conceptual metaphor, information warfare, psychological operations, scientific method, historical method and the sociology of knowledge.

One distinction that most students of these topics accept is that someone with an economic self-interest is rarely, if ever, a neutral observer.

Is disinformation just lying?

No. The word "lying " usually implies an awareness of spreading untruths. Long study in psychology, e.g. false memory syndrome, groupthink, suggests that honest advocates of a view can rarely tell when they have accepted some questionable premise or evidence along with the valid evidence for that view. This suggests a constructive role for their opponents in 'culling' that evidence and moderating extreme points of view among front groups, and industry experts. Such views may reflect not a desire to disinform, but rather a biased mind-set or paradigm where some central dogma has become accepted as true.

Why are PR firms a threat?

Public relations, the profession that trades in influence and in altering mind-sets and conceptual metaphors in public life, often has both economic self-interest and a commitment to a point of view. Thus an extreme scrutiny on activities and ethical codes of such professions is advised: the statements it produces must usually be considered disinformation by definition, at least by opponents, until proven otherwise.

How can the public fight back?

When such activities are genuinely against the public interest, wise members of the public seek tools to regain mindshare for what they see as 'truth'. Holding disinforming groups up to scrutiny is an ongoing process, a process far more important than labeling any particular point of view, or metaphor, or idea, as "disinforming". It is a cornerstone of any democracy.

What is this project's role in increasing public scrutiny?

Because of its global scope and experience with prior projects like Wikipedia and others by PRwatch, hopefully a project like SourceWatch can support the public scrutiny process more effectively than was possible with prior methods. If not, then also hopefully, that will become obvious and a more effective successor that will serve public purposes better can evolve, learning from this project's flaws and successes. So this project will likely serve as it is, and inspire successors. Our hope is based on use of very open and simple tools that have proven capable of attracting mass public participation:

What is "wiki"?

A WikiWiki is a collection of interlinked web pages, any of which can be visited and edited by anyone at any time (collaborative software). The concept and software was invented by Ward Cunningham. You can even edit the page you are reading right now; just click "Edit this page" (to the left or below) on this page! However, if you don't have anything to add or correct here, and you just want to see the Wiki in action, edit the SourceWatch:Sandbox page instead of this one. See also SourceWatch:Editing FAQ and What is a wiki for?

What if someone tries to vandalize or insert disinformation into the SourceWatch itself?

The Center for Media and Democracy, which sponsors the SourceWatch, has other channels through which we can expose and embarrass people who attempt to manipulate its content, such as the Spin of the Day and Weekly Spin features of the PR Watch web site. The SourceWatch software includes a number of features that make it possible to detect and manage vandalism. In keeping with our philosophy of creating a community-based "information commons," these features enable the entire community of Internet users to collaborate in overseeing its content, in effect serving as a sort of online "neighborhood watch committee":

1. Visitors to the site are invited to create individual user IDs. This makes it easy to track the editing activities of each logged-in user. Anonymous contributions by users who do not log in receive closer scrutiny than known and trusted users.
2. Logged-in users can log out if they feel they need to say something that they are less than usually certain of, or which they feel will be subjected to ad hominem argument, or if they wish to disagree with their published positions.
3. Logged-in users can create their own individual "watch lists" that let them keep an eye on articles that they feel deserve particular monitoring. They can also call up a list of all recent changes to the entire site.
4. The software keeps an archive of all past versions of each article, making it easy to undo malicious or misguided changes by reverting to a previous version.
5. Trusted users can be given "sysop" status, which lets them ban users who engage in vandalism. If a particular page becomes a target for repeat vandalism attempts, sysops can also mark that page as "protected," so that only other sysops can change it. (To request sysop status, send an email, specifying your user ID name, to bob AT SourceWatch.org.)
6. There will be some means of public accountability of the sysops and others with special priveleges, for now by notifying editor AT prwatch.org of activities you consider to be endangering the public policy purpose of the service as it is mandated above.

Since anyone can contribute information, why should anyone trust the SourceWatch as authoritative?

As the authors of a book titled Trust Us, We’re Experts, SourceWatch creators Sheldon Rampton and John Stauber have given quite a bit of thought to the question of what makes information credible. The SourceWatch intentionally avoids invoking "trusted authority figures." Instead, its credibility will depend on the degree to which articles are well-written and backed with supporting documentation, terms of art from "less social" sciences where these are applicable, and the degree to which credibility specialists themselves feel they can stake their credibility on trusting it.

How will the SourceWatch address questions of bias, particularly with regard to controversial topics?

Rather than using the terminology of "objectivity" or a "neutral point of view," we prefer the concepts of "fairness and accuracy." It is "fair and accurate," for example, to say that most climate scientists believe human activities are contributing to global warming, so there is no need to take a "neutral point of view" with regard to this question. Of course, bias is an issue in any information system, but SourceWatch’s users will constitute a community of peers whose combined influence helps compensate for the bias of single individuals. Systemic bias, e.g. due to contributor psychographics or demographics, will be overcome by a variety of measures to promote equity of viewpoints.

As an “encyclopedia of propaganda,” the SourceWatch is bound to deal with controversial topics. However, the Wikipedia system upon which it is based has shown considerable ability to produce articles that examine controversial topics in a fair and accurate way. Indeed, some of the most controversial topics yield the best articles, e.g. capitalism.

When did SourceWatch start?

On December 18, 2002, PR Watch editor Sheldon Rampton attended a conference in Amsterdam hosted by World-Information.org and first learned about the successful Wikipedia project to develop a free open content encyclopedia. Using Wikipedia as a model, he created SourceWatch in January 2003. The project was publicly launched on March 10, 2003.

Who owns SourceWatch?

The owner of the server and the domain names is the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). However, the articles are released by their authors under the GNU Free Documentation License, so the articles are open content. Therefore, it cannot be said that the owner of SourceWatch articles is CMD. See SourceWatch:Copyrights and SourceWatch:Readers' FAQ for information on how you can use SourceWatch content. (Please note, however, that other sections of the PR Watch web site remain copyrighted property of the Center for Media and Democracy and should not be used without permission.)

Who is responsible for the articles on SourceWatch?

This is a collaborative endeavor. Many people have contributed to different parts of this project, and anyone can do so. Including you! All you need to know is How to edit a page. It would also be good to know what you are talking about.

You can learn who is responsible for the most recent versions of any given page by clicking on the "History" link. But remember, if you spot an error in the latest revision and you don't correct it, then you share responsibility for the error. So be bold in updating pages!

If you are uncertain or find the wording confusing, quote the material on the associated talk page and leave a question for the next more knowledgeable reader or editor. This helps eliminate errors, inaccuracies or misleading wording more quickly and is highly appreciated by the community. Thank you!

I want to contact the project by e-mail. What's the address?

Contact the Center for Media & Democracy (bob AT SourceWatch.org) or Sheldon Rampton (sheldon AT prwatch.org). Otherwise, see the next question.

Where can I talk about SourceWatch with others?

If you want to communicate with a specific user, leave a message on his or her personal talk page; you can find a list of registered SourceWatch users at Special:Listusers. PR Watch also hosts a SourceWatch web forum. Finally, if you're looking to talk about a specific article or page, the best place to put your comments is on that page's Talk section.

What is Wikipedia?

See How does SourceWatch relate to Wikipedia?.

Can I add Wikipedia articles to SourceWatch?

Sure, and vice versa -- but please bear in mind that the purposes and editorial policies of SourceWatch and Wikipedia are somewhat different, so an article that is appropriate for one may not be appropriate for the other. See Differences between SourceWatch and Wikipedia.