Lund University Information Quality Research Group (LUIQ)

We rely increasingly on information from social media. But how do we know that the information we receive is of good quality? This research group studies information quality (IQ) of social information practices from philosophical and interdisciplinary perspectives, including Internet communication, argumentation, voting and other phenomena involving group deliberation or decision making.

This research group studies the quality of social information processes, from social inquiry and argumentation to Internet communication, and how those processes affect the individual and collective competence of decision makers. We are also interested in the question of how to improve such processes so that they deliver information and decisions of higher quality in a democratic society. Information quality (IQ) has four main aspects. Intrinsic IQ has to do with the qualities that the information has "in itself", i.e., its believability, reliability and trustworthiness. Contextual IQ concerns the relevance of the information in a particular context of use. Representational IQ involves the ease with which the information can be represented and interpreted. Finally, accessibility IQ has to do with how easily the information can be accessed. Relevant philosophical areas include: mainstream, formal and social epistemology, decision theory, game theory, philosophical logic and philosophy of language. Interdisciplinary connections: social and cognitive psychology, political, media and legal science.