Misinformation

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Misinformation is wrong or inaccurate information. It is distinguished from disinformation by motive – misinformation is simply erroneous, while disinformation, in contrast, is intended to mislead.^[1]

Makkai proposes the distinction between misinformation and disinformation to be a defining characteristic of idioms in the English language.^[2] An utterance is only idiomatic if it involves disinformation, where the listener can decode the utterance in a logical, and lexically correct, yet erroneous way. Where the listener simply decodes the lexemes incorrectly, the utterance is simply misinformation, and not idiomatic.

Damian Thompson defines "counterknowlege" as "misinformation packaged to look like fact".^[3]

References

Further reading

• Christopher Murphy (2005). Competitive Intelligence: Gathering, Analysing And Putting It to Work. Gower Publishing, Ltd., 186–189. ISBN 0566085372.  — a case study of misinformation arising from simple error
• Martin C. Libicki (2007). "Misinformation and disinformation", Conquest in Cyberspace: National Security and Information Warfare. Cambridge University Press, 51ff. ISBN 0521871603. 
• Jürg Strässler (1982). Idioms in English: A Pragmatic Analysis. Gunter Narr Verlag, 43–44. ISBN 3878089716. 

See also

Look up Misinformation in
Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Factoid
• Gossip
• Junk Science
• Rumor
• Social constructionism