The growing concern over disinformation campaigns and the mounting difficulty of distinguishing true from false content in digital environments (Newman, Arguedas, Robertson, Nielsen, & Fletcher, 2025; Nielsen, 2025) has driven the need to rethink how the media industry confronts this challenge. To the ease of production and speed of distribution afforded by hypermedia (Scolari, 2008) we must now add generative artificial intelligence tools that can create synthetic content, whether text, images, audio, or video, that increasingly mimics reality with sophisticated fidelity. Disinformation amplified by these technologies poses risks to the integrity of information (UNESCO, 2024), deepens social polarization, and erodes public trust.

This scenario compels journalists and communicators to revisit, innovate, and strengthen their strategies against disinformation. In this context, “fact telling” (Wright, 2024) and compelling narrative techniques are considered promising tools for conveying factual and verified content in the post‑factual era.

Debunking techniques aim to counter both misinformation and disinformation in digital media, while compelling narratives provide a powerful framework for delivering facts to citizens and enhancing media and information literacy (MIL) within communities. As part of these efforts, journalistic enterprises and civil‑society organizations have launched a variety of initiatives to foster a healthy and democratic ecosystem (López Linares, 2023; López Linares, 2024).

Social resilience against online threats, including those that undermine information integrity, depends on citizens possessing a basic level of digital skills. Full exercise of citizenship in the twenty‑first century requires individuals to navigate an increasingly complex media environment, whether to seek out information, verify it, or participate in public debate. MIL encompasses the essential skills needed to cultivate critical thinking in the contemporary digital landscape.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) states that “equipping individuals with the ability to access information, analyze it, and engage with it critically is essential for navigating the complexities of the digital age and fostering media‑ and information‑literate societies” (UNESCO, 2024b).

Proyecto Desconfío, an Argentine organization combating disinformation, has been studying changes in the digital environment for several years and experimenting with different responses to mitigate the effects of disinformation on society (Pino & Arréguez Manozzo, 2025). Among its various initiatives, the one that yielded the greatest impact was the design of storytelling strategies to disseminate verified content through non‑traditional formats and narratives.

In this article, we outline the general guidelines of two Latin American projects that Proyecto Desconfío developed in collaboration with researchers and fact‑checkers to improve the distribution of verified content in disinformation contexts. Firstly, the “Repartiendo verdades. #NoAlOdio” project—led by Fundación para el Periodismo de Bolivia with support from the International Fact‑Checking Network (IFCN)—aimed to curb the circulation and spread of hate speech on social media in Bolivia by sending verified content via WhatsApp messaging.

Launched at the end of 2022, this initiative involved transforming fact‑checking articles from the Bolivia Verifica website into graphic pieces, which were then distributed through a dedicated WhatsApp channel to refute hate speech that had gone viral on social media. The strategy emphasized visual communication that conveys verified data concisely, using a platform familiar to social‑media users.

Similarly, the Digital Media Observatory (OMD) at the Tecnológico de Monterrey in Mexico employed new narrative forms to combat electoral disinformation during the 2024 elections. This project applied storytelling techniques with the goal of reducing disinformation campaigns and fostering greater user engagement with verified content.

In both cases, Proyecto Desconfío developed content proposals, visual designs, and distribution strategies to counter circulating disinformation and contribute to a healthier communications ecosystem. These two projects brought verified information to news consumers through non‑traditional channels, using a visual, concise, and fast‑consumption narrative.

The aim of this article is to characterize the narrative structures and design of the pieces used to distribute verified content in the projects mentioned. Our hypothesis is that storytelling and design are key elements in verification content because they have potential to increase audience interest and engagement. Also offer insights into how news media can inform online audiences—whose habits and consumption patterns are evolving—with innovative storytelling techniques in verification processes. Ultimately, these experiences demonstrate that enhancing storytelling methods in fact‑checking can strength citizens’ media literacy abilities.

The contemporary media ecosystem is undermined by high levels of media distrust, polarization, disinformation campaigns and by the proliferation of hate speech and conspiratorial narratives (Newman, Fletcher, Schulz, Andi & Nielsen, 2020; Newman, 2021; Newman, 2024).

Media legacy is losing audience each year meanwhile social media; video platforms and feed readers are gaining users. 62% of people do not turn to news media as their primary source of information (Newman et al., 2025). Instead, influencers and online personalities—perceived alongside national politicians as the world’s greatest misinformation threat—have gained prominence (Newman et al., 2025).

Approximately 55% of Internet users consult influencers’ and content creators’ accounts for information, while only one third turn to traditional media (Newman, 2024). This figure poses a problem, given that a UNESCO study of content creators found a low prevalence of fact‑checking in their practices, underscoring their vulnerability to misinformation and disinformation. Of those surveyed, 36.9% admitted they do not verify content before publication, and 58.1% base their content on personal experiences (UNESCO, 2024a).

The Reuters Institute for Journalism also reports that 29% of people use social media as their primary media for accessing online news, followed by search engines (Newman, 2024). According to the 2025 Digital News Report from the University of Oxford, one third of people use Facebook (36%) and YouTube (30%) to access news each week, followed by Instagram and WhatsApp (19%), TikTok (16%) and X (12%). At the same time, Facebook and TikTok are identified as the platforms posing the highest risk for false and misleading content (Newman et al., 2025).

Information integrity is a critical concern for the European Union: the 2025 State of the Digital Decade report published by the European Commission indicates that 88% of Europeans worry about fake news and online manipulation (European Commission, 2025). These findings align with those of the University of Oxford, which reported that 58% of respondents are concerned about their ability to distinguish true from false content in online news—a figure that has remained steady for the third consecutive year (Newman, 2025).

Storytelling can be defined as the art of telling stories (Vargas de la Cruz, 2025) It involves the construction of structured narratives that appeal to emotion, identification, and collective memory, thereby facilitating the comprehension and retention of complex information. In the field of management, these techniques have been employed to mobilize audiences’ emotions through narrative. Indeed, since antiquity humanity has constructed stories to offer worldviews, explain natural phenomena, change behaviors, and generate consensus to certain beliefs.

Steve Denning—widely recognized as one of the leading experts in agile leadership, innovation, and organizational storytelling—noted that “…across history, storytelling has been an important tool for changing people’s mindsets and initiating great movements of change. Major religions have been built, and wars have been begun, using a story as the primary communication tool” (2008, p. 2).

Companies and organizations have adopted storytelling techniques to forge emotional bonds with consumers that transcend the engagement generated by the qualities of a product or service. Audience engagement resides in shared narratives.

Helen Love, an expert in internal communication and an agent involved in the introduction of storytelling at major firms such as Microsoft, explains that “…the story can become a viral communication, being passed from mouth to mouth, up, down, around and external to the organization. It can grow with the telling, it can become a modern myth, it can cement a company’s position and ultimately it can make the difference between success and failure” (2008, p. 25).

In the context of disinformation, storytelling is used to present verified facts in an attractive and simple way, with the aim of counterbalancing the emotional component of false news (Witness, 2021). Within this framework, storytelling techniques have emerged as key tools to discredit false narratives and strengthen public trust in verified information.

Just as storytelling has been employed by brands, and organizations, journalism and fact-checking can enhance the dissemination of verified content through these techniques.

Several studies have shown that traditional fact-checking methods, as their true/false labels fail to achieve the visibility and impact necessary to curb the spread of original misinformation (Graves & Cherubini, 2016). Effective storytelling is a critical component of any debunking strategy. Media outlets seek to impact their audiences through verified pieces in the form of interactive texts, audio, chatbots, animations, and videos, among other formats.

According to the State of Fact‑Checker Report (Poynter, 2024), short‑form video leads audience engagement, with TikTok and YouTube Shorts playing a key role in reaching new audiences based on engagement metrics. Infographics and visual explainers followed at 39.3%, while brief fact-checks ranked third at 35%.

During the COVID‑19 pandemic, for example, storytelling was employed to combat vaccine‑related disinformation. Studies such as Islam et al. (2021) demonstrate that verified narratives, accompanied by testimonials from public figures and clear explanations, helped to discredit rumors and promote vaccination—especially among vulnerable communities. In Indonesia, the strategy included the public vaccination of the president and the dissemination of personal stories via traditional and digital media, reinforcing trust through narratives that humanized the process and addressed the population’s specific fears (Arifin, 2021).

The use of direct testimonials from individuals affected by or involved in events is a powerful technique for countering disinformation. Such accounts enable emotional connection with the audience and discredit alternative versions through empathy and identification (Islam et al., 2021).

The studies reviewed agree that storytelling increases the effectiveness of distributing verified content, especially when combined with media education and community engagement strategies (Tang et al., 2021).

Contemporary societies are exposed to a vast array of informational, educational, and entertainment content across diverse formats and channels. Citizens access this information to participate actively in public affairs. For this reason, it is imperative that individuals know how to access reliable information sources, analyze data, and evaluate them, so that they can take informed action within their own communities.

According to the United Nations (2021), media and information literacy—which integrates the fields of information literacy, media literacy, and digital literacy—encompasses competencies that enhance citizens’ capacity to engage with information both critically and meaningfully. Media literacy can also be defined as “the ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication” (NAMLE, n.d.).

The relationship between the media and civic participation is crucial. UNESCO’s Grunwald Declaration on Media Education promoted the integration of media education into formal schooling systems. In that document, experts emphasized that:

The role of communication and media in the process of development should not be underestimated, nor the function of media as instruments for the citizen’s active participation in society. Political and educational systems need to recognize their obligations to promote in their citizens a critical understanding of the phenomena of communication. (UNESCO, 1982)

Digital citizenship, that is, the ability to use the Internet reflectively and creatively, both for critical analysis and for participation, is a fundamental right for building citizenship in this millennium. In the twenty‑first century, limited access to and appropriation of technology hinder the exercise of full citizenship and serve as a factor of exclusion (UNESCO, 2021, p. 2).

To participate in digital citizenship, people must strengthen their media and information literacy (MIL) capacities to use communication technologies reflectively and creatively. Digital citizenship, as Morduchowicz (2021) explains, is a right for citizenship‑building in the twenty‑first century. This is not solely the responsibility of the formal education system; civil society organizations and the media can also contribute to fostering a more informed citizenry.

In recent decades, many initiatives have been undertaken by media outlets to facilitate news access for groups traditionally excluded from or underrepresented in public debates—such as women and rural communities (López Linares, 2023; López Linares, 2024).

Fact-checking sites and other information-providing organizations have experimented with non-traditional formats for distributing verified content, seeking to spark audience interest through pieces that explain the verification process or teach news users how to check information and sources themselves.

This article presents a case‑study analysis to understand the use of visual narratives for verified‑fact storytelling, as well as non‑traditional channels such as social media and messaging services. Sabino explains case studies as “(...) profound and exhaustive study of one or very few research objects, which makes it possible to obtain broad and detailed knowledge of them” (1992, p. 66).

This is qualitative exploratory research that characterizes the narrative structures and design of the pieces used to distribute verified content in the Bolivian project “Repartiendo verdades. #NoAlOdio” and the work of the Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Digital Media Observatory in Mexico during the 2024 elections. So, this study is centered on the characteristics of the verified content, editorial decisions and actions taken by the leader projects.

The corpus was selected according to relevance as the pieces explicitly were designed to communicate verified information; its format -visual or audiovisual narratives adaptable to social media; and context, because they were produced in electoral or high-risk information environments where verification is critical.

Based on these criteria, the sample includes more than 50 visual pieces produced by the Bolivian project “Repartiendo verdades. #NoAlOdio” and the work of the Tecnológico de Monterrey’s Digital Media Observatory in Mexico during the 2024 elections.

The analysis combines three complementary techniques. First, visual design analysis, used to examine how the pieces evolved from text-heavy fact-checking articles into highly visual assets designed for WhatsApp, focusing on color palettes, typography, and the layout strategies that improved clarity and shareability. Second, verification-design cues analysis, aimed at identifying credibility markers, specific terms, and contextual elements incorporated into the pieces, as well as the visual mechanisms used to explain verification outcomes and engage audiences in fast-paced digital environments. Third, editorial decision analysis, applied to reconstruct the logic behind the selection of the content, and the adaptation of long-form reports into concise visual micro-narratives.

Together, these techniques enable a systematic characterization of the verified content, the editorial decisions, and the visual-storytelling strategies adopted by the two projects analyzed.

Both projects have tried different storytelling techniques to empower distributing verified content and debunking disinformation and succeed in compelling conversation with the audience. Verified narratives not only debunk disinformation, but also strengthen communities' informational resilience, promoting critical thinking and trust in legitimate sources. Evidence indicates that well-designed storytelling contributes significantly to building more informed and resilient societies in the face of disinformation.

Innovation in the distribution of verified content has become a cornerstone of fact-checking, since merely publishing a debunk on a website isn’t enough: it’s vital to bring verification results to the media environments where audiences consume content. The most effective approaches combine authenticity, personal testimonies, interactive tools, and audiovisual resources, adapting to the dynamics of contemporary news consumption.

Journalists must develop the skills to distribute content in digital platforms by adapting formats, syntaxis, languages and the dynamics of each network. This implies experimenting with visual narratives and reels on Instagram, threads on X (formerly Twitter), short videos on TikTok, or stickers on WhatsApp.

It is important to note that these same narrative techniques are often used by disinformers. Therefore, while we understand storytelling as a strategy that helps bring verified content closer to audiences, it must be accompanied by additional approaches that strengthen media-literacy competencies. Only then can citizens develop the skills needed to avoid becoming victims of disinformation, manipulation and polarized narratives.

This study remarks the relevance of alliances of fact-checking initiatives with external organizations like Proyecto Desconfío, making a great combination of verified content and storytelling to counter disinformation. The distance and perspective of external allies specialized on disinformation, but focused on how to create, show and distribute verified content is a good practice to scale.

This study presents two successful cases of storytelling applied to the distribution of verified content in specific Latin American contexts. Therefore, it is important to acknowledge the limitations of these findings, which should be tested through additional experiences and across more diverse communities.

The initiatives analyzed show that engaging storytelling enhances media literacy because it transforms verified information into accessible narratives that are easier to understand and apply. By doing so, it helps news users identify credible sources, interpret evidence, and participate more confidently in civic life.

In the cases studied, we identified that when verified content is presented through powerful formats—such as visual narratives, testimonial videos, or emotionally resonant stories— audiences can observe how evidence is gathered, how sources are evaluated, and how arguments are constructed or manipulated.

These non-traditional formats strengthen key media-literacy skills by fostering critical-thinking skills, enabling citizens to recognize harmful narratives (including hate speech, violent discourse, or discriminatory messages), and making them more capable of independently evaluating the information they encounter.

Ultimately, engaging storytelling not only encourages the consumption of verified content but also supports the transfer of verification criteria into everyday media practices—an essential component of media and information literacy.References