The next EDMO BELUX Lunch Lecture will take place on December 15th, 2025, at 13:00-14:00 CET. Join us for this webinar, where Babette Hermans will present new insights into how fact-checks circulate across social media platforms, who they actually reach, and what current patterns of engagement reveal about the effectiveness of dissemination strategies.
Attendance is free but registration is required here
What happens to fact-checks after they are published? In this talk, Babette Hermans will present findings from her research on the online circulation of fact-checks: how fact-checks are reposted from the website to social media, how often this happens, and how these fact-checks flow from different platforms to others.
Drawing on her research and on insights from related studies, the presentation will explore who fact-checks are reaching and who is engaging with them. The combination of these findings helps to outline who fact-checkers are reaching and reveal possible gaps in the current dissemination strategies.
Babette Hermans is a PhD researcher at the KU Leuven under guidance of Prof. Michaël Opgenhaffen and Prof. Peter Van Aelst. She is working on the iBOF PolKnow project, which focuses on how young adults acquire knowledge about politics and how specific interventions could enhance that knowledge. In this context, she focuses on the impact of fact-checks on political knowledge. Her expertise lies in fact-checking effectiveness research, as well as quantitative research and misinformation.