Simulated Journalism Environments (J-SIMs) as a Conceptual Space to Examine Scientific Disinformation

Background: This report engages with a lack of experiments on innovative curricular designs in support of journalism education as related to scientific disinformation and reporting on health crises. Analysis: The analysis includes the views of 114 Canadian students who participated in six journalism simulations (J-SIMs) between 2018 and 2023. The report focuses on responses to scientific disinformation in the J-SIMs and presents five meta-themes that are important to future practice: health literacy, debunking, inoculations, future accuracy, and system-level considerations. Conclusions and implications: These results are discussed as conceptual priorities with the aim of informing future research on how to best prepare students to address scientific disinformation.