This book is the first academic work to comprehensively examine fact-checking practices outside Western democracies, featuring exclusively Global South voices. Unlike existing literature dominated by Western perspectives, this volume provides insider knowledge from scholars and practitioners operating in challenging environments with limited resources, political instability, and restricted data access. The book introduces concepts like "checktainment" and explores AI deployment in non-Western contexts, revealing how fact-checkers adapt methodologies to local conditions. Written by Global South scholars and practitioners with direct experience, it fills a critical gap in understanding how misinformation is combated across Latin America, Africa, and Asia. Volume 1 offers an overview of the fact-checking ecosystem in the Global South, pointing out the differences with Western democracies and considering the institutions behind fact-checking organizations, cooperative endeavours, and the deployment of emerging technologies in the industry. 

Mathias-Felipe de-Lima-Santos (Ph.D.) is a scholar and practitioner working at the intersection of media, technology, and society. He currently serves as an Assistant Professor at the University New South Wales (UNSW, Australia). He is also a researcher in the Digital Media and Society Observatory (DMSO) at the Federal University of São Paulo (Unifesp), Brazil and in the Political Communication, Journalism and Democracy Research Group (POLCOM-GRP) at the Pompeu Fabra University (Spain). Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher in the Human(e) AI and AI4Media projects at the University of Amsterdam, Netherlands and a researcher at the University of Navarra, Spain, under the JOLT project, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie European Training Network funded by the European Commission’s Horizon 2020. Mathias-Felipe is co-editor of the book “Journalism, Data and Technology in Latin America” by Palgrave Macmillan. He is currently part of the editorial board of Digital Journalism, Journalism Practice and Emerging Media journals. His work focuses on how emerging technologies impact media ecosystems and how to foster collaborative innovation between academia and industry.

Arwa Kooli (PhD) is an Assistant Professor at the Institute of Press and Information Sciences (IPSI) Tunisia, she used to be the editor-in-chief of the fact-checking platform Tunifact. She taught different classes at IPSI including data journalism, fact-checking and the Intercultural Communication Transnational Classroom which is the result of collaboration between the IPSI and the School of Communication Studies (SCS) at Kent State University, Ohio, U.S.A., in addition to other courses. She participated in and coordinated different projects in which IPSI collaborated with other universities around the world. She has conducted research on fact-checking, social media, journalism education, journalism, and communication. She is also a data journalism and fact-checking trainer.