Diary #01
Embedded Files
THE WHITE VAN
THE WHITE VAN
SCHOOLS
A rumour heard at school, fear spreading among classmates and uncertainty about what really happened.
THE STORY
THE STORY
When he was in his fifth year of primary school, a student remembers hearing about a white van at school. According to the story circulating, someone was supposedly offering children rides and then kidnapping them.
The rumour had reached him through other classmates, without him having searched for it. He did not know who had first told the story. Yet, initially, it had seemed quite credible to him: in the questionnaire, he gives it a score of 4 out of 5.
"We panicked and started talking about it" he recounts.
Fear was therefore accompanied by word of mouth. That news, heard in a familiar setting such as school, became a topic of conversation among children who did not know where it had originated.
Looking back on what happened, the student describes it as "a kind of fake news", linking it to different information circulating in different cities. However, he does not explain what checks led him to this conclusion. When asked about the intention of whoever had created the content, he answers "To deceive", while stating that he does not know who the author was.
The episode left him with doubts. He cannot say for certain whether similar information influences what people think or do. In his concluding answers, he raises another concern: on social media, he observes, not everything is true, and he urges his peers to be careful.
His story, however, does not begin on social media: it begins with something someone told him at school.
BEYOND THE STORY
— When a rumour becomes credible
BEYOND THE STORY
— When a rumour becomes credible
This Diary helps us distinguish the content of a rumour from the path through which it reaches us. The student receives an alarming story through people he knows, initially rates its credibility highly, feels afraid and talks about it in turn.
We do not know whether the episode described actually happened, nor can we establish that the rumour was intentionally fabricated to deceive. We can, however, observe a concrete information dynamic: everyday relationships can give visibility and apparent credibility to information whose origin remains unknown.
Disinformation is often associated with digital platforms, but rumours also circulate through conversations, families, friendships and school environments. Asking where information comes from and what checks support it is important in both cases.
A QUESTION FOR YOU
A QUESTION FOR YOU
When alarming news reaches us from someone we know, how much does our trust in that person matter? And what could we do before telling others about it?
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