Towards Misinformation Resilience in Pakistan: A Participatory Study with Low-Socioeconomic Status Adults

TL;DR

This study develops and tests a culturally grounded framework and prototype to enhance misinformation resilience among low-SES adults in Pakistan, emphasizing participatory design and trust dynamics.

Contribution

It introduces the Scaffolded Support Model and Pehchaan, a participatory, culturally sensitive approach to combat misinformation in resource-limited settings.

Findings

Pehchaan prototype received strong acceptance and cultural resonance.

Participants demonstrated a layered trust ecology and moral economy of sharing.

The participatory methodology is effective for inclusive misinformation intervention design.

Abstract

Digital misinformation disproportionately affects low-socioeconomic status (SES) populations. While interventions for the Global South exist, they often report limited success, particularly among marginalized communities. Through a three-phase participatory study with 41 low-SES Pakistani adults, we conducted formative interviews to understand their information practices, followed by co-design sessions that translated these user-identified needs into concrete design requirements. Our findings reveal a sophisticated moral economy of sharing and a layered ecology of trust that prioritizes communal welfare. These insights inform the Scaffolded Support Model, a user-derived framework integrating on-demand assistance with gradual, inoculation-based skill acquisition. We instantiated this model in our prototype, "Pehchaan," and conducted usability testing (N=15), which confirmed its strong acceptance and cultural resonance, validating our culturally grounded approach. Our work contributes a foundational empirical account of non-Western misinformation practices, a replicable participatory methodology for inclusive design, and actionable principles for building information resilience in resource-constrained contexts.