As part of my final year at university I completed a Design Honours Research Project.  Targeted at combatting misinformation during the pandemic, my project encompasses not only my final outcome but the prototypes I created along the way. 
Research Statement
Misinformation is a wicked problem that has re-emerged as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Enabled by the post-truth movement, individuals have used social media to voice their opinions on the pandemic, irrespective of the empirical knowledge needed to back up their beliefs. This has created an excess of information (infodemic) and has had wide-spreading impacts both on individual’s ability to discern the truth and leading organisations to share their messaging.
While there have been many interventions that have been designed to combat the social media infodemic within the digital space, they have come with limited success. This project takes a more radical approach.  
Trust me. I’m Fake News is a sticker and social media campaign that draws attention to the negative culture of sharing opinions on Facebook. Using a two-pronged intervention, it explores the consequences both online and in the urban environment.Drawing upon design activism techniques through Thomas Markussen’s framework Disruptive Aesthetics, the work ‘playfully appropriates commercial rhetoric’ and uses it to draw parallels between misinformation and COVID-19. By doing so, the work acts as a visual reminder for individuals to reconsider why they share information and what they choose to share on social media.​​​​​​​
My work has also been on display at UNSW Galleries for The Annual: https://www.theannualexhibition.org/portfolio/madison-tong/  
My Honours project was a two pronged intervention - with the sticker intervention being displayed above. To explore the rest of my honours work including my Facebook intervention and iterative process please click here

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