Help inform the conversation
MediaWell relies on members of the public to submit articles, events, and research.
News on Defining "Disinformation"
Propaganda analysis has long focused on revealing the rhetorical tricks and hidden special interests behind persuasion campaigns. But what are critics to do when propaganda is obvious? In the late 1930s the Institute for Propaganda Analysis faced this question while investigating the public politicking of A&P, then the largest retailer in the United States. While […]
By Tim WoodMany of the stories that pundits, journalists, and scholars tell about disinformation begin with the 2016 US presidential election and focus on the role of social media platforms in spreading and generating false content. At their worst, these narratives imply that in the past, everyone shared the same sense of what was true and what […]
By Alice Marwick, Rachel Kuo, Shanice Jones Cameron, and Moira WeigelThis special issue is designed to place our contemporary post-truth impasse in historical perspective. Drawing comparisons to the Propaganda Analysis research paradigm of the Interwar years, this essay and issue call attention to historical similarities between patterns in mass communication research then and now. The hope is that contemporary misinformation studies scholars can learn from […]
By A. J. Bauer and Anthony NadlerThe Ten Years Hence speaker series explores issues, ideas, and trends likely to affect business and society over the next decade. Students, faculty, and the community use guest speaker comments as a springboard for structured speculation about emerging issues and the next ten years. […]
When China-linked networks of social media bots and trolls appeared on the global disinformation scene in 2019, most analysts concluded that their impact and reach were fairly limited, particularly in terms of engagement by real users and relative to more sophisticated actors in this realm, like the Russian regime. As many China watchers anticipated, that […]
By Sarah CookSometimes, when I look at the outlet where I insert my computer charger, I can see a sorrowful face looking back at me: two thin slits for eyes and a big, dour, downturned arc of a mouth, surprised and dismayed at its throatful of electricity. There’s a term for the human tendency to see faces […]
By Talia LavinEvent Meta end author Event content The consequences of disinformation came into sharp relief in the coordinated and violent attack on the United States Capitol on January 6th. Social media platforms intensify the speed of misleading communication that promoted lies, misrepresentations, and deceptive sourcing to energize groups. This was a concerted and organized campaign to […]
Crowdsourcing from a group of 1,128 of users, researchers were able to segment groups as small as 10 individuals online that could accurately determine whether or not an article was false—about as well as professional fact-checkers. Supplemented by algorithms, a system like this could be trained to identify fake news at the speed and scale […]
By Renee Diresta and Tobias Rose-StockwellOn October 7 of last year, the Twitter account @hakkidin tweeted what appeared to be a heartfelt message of congratulations: “I’d like to wish our president, our supreme commander-in-chief Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin a Happy Birthday. I wish him strength, success in his difficult work and thanks for a powerful, flourishing fatherland. THREE CHEERS IN HONOR […]
By Darren Linvill and Patrick WarrenMichelle Queen does not consider herself part of QAnon, but she does believe some of its most outlandish conspiracies – including that Satan-worshipping elites in a secret pedophile cabal are killing babies and drinking their blood. “When you are evil, you’re evil,” says Queen, 46, from Texas. “It goes deep.” Queen also believes the big […]
By Tovia SmithThe Empirical Studies of Conflict Project (ESOC) at the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs (SPIA) at Princeton University seek applicants for a one-year Postdoctoral Research Associate or more senior research position as part of a multi-university team conducting research on efforts by foreign powers to influence politics in democracies and the circulation of […]
By Princeton University