Deciding what’s fact-checking. Epistemology, practices, and professional boundaries in a hybrid field

This article analyses the structuring process of a strongly «hybrid» professional field – that of fact-checking – where journalists and non-journalists coexist, and which is still in the process of defining its boundaries. By means of an analysis of methodological sections and a sample of articles from 21 projects from the worlds of journalism, academia and civil society, this study investigates the epistemological principles, values, and practices upon which fact-checking is attempting to institutionalise itself as a professional field with shared standards. The results show a common reference to a «proto-journalistic», normative and positivist epistemology, but professional practices that are much more open to an interpretative and dynamic conception of information.