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Literature Review

Toolkit for Trust: Strategies for Better Online Communication

This literature review summarizes key response strategies from the Analysis and Response Toolkit for Trust (ARTT) project, which offers a research-backed framework to foster trust and productive dialogue. Navigating contentious online conversations can be challenging, but the ARTT catalog offers a collaborative database of evidence-based insights on healthy digital communication. This review will help answer the question, “what do I say, and how do I say it” for anyone who communicates online.

The Global Majority Has its Own Counter-Disinformation Agenda

As counter-disinformation strategies face mounting challenges—shrinking budgets, shifting alliances between tech and governments, and the limits of top-down techno-legal solutions—civil society in the Global Majority offers innovative alternatives. In this article, Ong and Jackson describe an alternative agenda that prioritizes community resilience, challenges the structures fueling disinformation, and provides actionable insights for Global North partners to better support the creativity and autonomy of Global Majority civil society organizations.

Literature Review

Why We Fight for Fractured Truths – How Misinformation Fuels Political Violence in Democracies

In recent election cycles, political violence has afflicted democracies worldwide. From assaults against candidates in France to riotous nationalism in India and to the seditious attacks on the government in the US and Brazil, civilians in democracies are increasingly participating in politics using violence. Notably, many of these instances of violence are predicated on mis- and disinformation, which are used to amplify political mobilization and target out-group ideologies. This review explores how mis- and disinformation fuel political violence in democracies by examining the drivers of unrest, the role of institutions in shaping disinformation, and the connection between misinformation and polarization, while highlighting strategies to disrupt harmful narratives.

Dataset Library

Welcome to MediaWell’s Dataset Library, a curated collection of tools, guides, and resources to support evidence-based solutions to digital mis- and disinformation. Our library is made up of three sections: Datasets & Data Repositories offers access to raw data, and includes details on the update status (active/archived), data type, time period, and access type (open/restricted) of each resource; Social Media APIs Guides & Toolkits helps navigate the shifting landscape of requesting data from social media platforms; and Peer Resources & Partner Organizations provides a list of cutting-edge labs, centers, and think tanks working at the intersections of democracy and technology.

Book Interview

Digital Unsettling: Decoloniality and Dispossession in the Age of Social Media

In this interview with the SSRC, anthropologists Sahana Udupa and Ethiraj Gabriel Dattatreyan discuss their book Digital Unsettling: Decoloniality and Dispossession in the Age of Social Media (New York University Press.2023).  Their work explores the intricate ways that digital networks shape – and are shaped by – ongoing struggles against coloniality, through the lens of student-led antiracism protests, data capture, academic practices, and a rise in right-wing extreme speech around the world. Udupa and Dattatreyan offer insight into the fieldwork that informed their findings and the implications for power hierarchies in the contemporary digital environment.

Research Topics

  • False Narratives and their Contexts

    Conspiracy theories, vaccine misinformation, scams and frauds, and influence operations can flourish online. This research topic delves deep into case studies that analyze the complex dynamics and histories of the circulation of false information, examining the actors, their incentives, and their relationships with the media and affected communities.  
  • Infrastructures and Methodologies

    The field of mis- and disinformation studies is comprised of a range of disciplines that bring different methodological tools to the table, and mis- and disinformation can be found in a range of different media, not just online. This research topic explores the affordances and limits of different methodologies and sources for helping to gain a wider view. 

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