Green conflicts and fact-checking: Journalism in the Age of Disinformation and Environmental Crisis

This course examines two interrelated challenges for contemporary journalism: 1) reporting on the climate crises that are polarizing, and 2) safeguarding factual integrity in an era of disinformation and rapidly evolving digital threats. Students will develop the ability to critically assess sources, verify information, and identify misinformation while reporting on conflicts related to climate change, biodiversity loss, and the green transition. The course combines conceptual perspectives with practical training, enabling students to produce accurate, constructive and ethically grounded journalism that contributes to informed democratic debate.

This course is taught in English.

None

After completing the course, the student should have the following overall learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:

Knowledge

The student can:

• define and explain key concepts in misinformation, disinformation, and fake news and describe and critically evaluate journalistic verification and fact-checking practices.

• identify and contextualize key environmental conflicts and explain journalism’s role in covering them.

• critically reflect on normative approaches to environmental communication and analyze how journalism interacts with political, economic, and ecological power structures and stakeholders.

Skills

The student can:

• identify, analyze, and evaluate disinformation across different media formats apply factchecking techniques and source criticism in digital and traditional media contexts.

• identify and explain competing societal interests in green conflicts

• produce well-researched, balanced, and engaging journalistic stories on environmental topics and design journalistic work that engages diverse audiences on a range of different media platforms through accurate, ethical, transparent and constructive reporting.

General competence

The student can:

• critically reflect on and discuss the role of journalism in democratic societies and environmental transitions and navigate and evaluate complex intersections of media, politics, science, and nature.

• work independently and collaboratively in culturally diverse settings and to communicate complex information clearly and accessibly.

Lectures

Workshops

Group work

Feedback sessions

The teaching takes place in person, on campus

All the following must be completed and approved for exam eligibility:

1. Group Presentation: Mapping a Green Conflict - A verbal and visual group presentation, 12–15 minutes. Part of the presentation can be a video or podcast production. The group shall map a selected environmental conflict by identifying central stakeholders, different interests, and media framings based on independent research.

2. An Individual essay, 3–4 pages. The essay should critically reflect on the role of journalism in covering environmental conflicts and in countering disinformation. Students must explicitly engage with course literature

3. Journalistic Assignment reporting on a green conflict. A news or feature story, Individual or in pairs. Length: 1000–1500 words (or equivalent in multimedia format, i.e, 7-10 min). Students are to produce journalistic news or feature stories on an environmental conflict, based on independent research and verification, interviews, and documentation. The work must demonstrate balanced reporting, source criticism, and the integration of fact-checking techniques.

Purpose of the assignments: To train students in journalistic coverage of environmental conflicts, with emphasis on independent research, fact-checking, and critical reflection on disinformation.

All requirements must be submitted by deadlines and approved. One re-submission opportunity is granted if needed.

An individual analytical take-home exam paper, 8–10 pages, on Journalism, Disinformation, and Environmental Conflicts and the Climate Crisis. The take-home paper should address a chosen topic related to disinformation and a climateenvironmental conflict, combining theoretical insight with analytical discussion. Students are expected to integrate course literature and, where relevant, illustrate arguments with concrete journalistic cases (from their own assignments or other external material).

Requirements: Arial/Calibri 12 pt, 1.5 line spacing.

The paper may be submitted in English or Norwegian.

All support materials are permitted during the examination, provided that the rules for proper source referencing are strictly observed.

Use of AI in academic work is only allowed as a supportive tool (e.g., for research overview, language improvement, or data analysis), never as a substitute for your own thinking and writing, and any use of AI must be clearly acknowledged and referenced according to academic standards.

Grading scale: A – F

All exam papers are assessed by two examiners.