In today’s digitally networked world, news spreads at lightning speed. It is often difficult to distinguish between fake and truth, facts and fiction. The flood of images, videos, reports, and speculation can easily lead to confusion or misinterpretation. Amidst this flux, the quest for reliable methods to uncovering the »truth« and gain clear perspectives on events has never been more critical.

Based on the assumption that eyewitness reports create an echo on the Internet during an event, Open Source Research, often referred to as OSINT (Open-Source Intelligence), examines all data points that are part of this echo to reconstruct the actual incident – the digital imprint of real events.

Through forensic techniques, remote sensing, and geolocation, these practices have become established among open-source researchers and journalistic practices to verify events. These shifts influence how news events are reported and, vice versa, how we perceive these events through news coverage. These technologies determine what we see and how we see it – and, last but not least, how we remember it.

Consequently, the world we encounter through our screens becomes a metaphorical »Memoryscape« – a space composed of the countless images and reports we experience daily through news coverage. This complexity results from news media in different countries focusing on other stories through various decisions, taking place in specific locations and presented from different perspectives. The result is a fragmented collage-like narrative of world events, highlighting the disparate ways in which news is curated and communicated.