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The Gender Dimensions of Foreign Influence Operations

Samantha Bradshaw, Amélie Henle

International Journal of Communication, volume 15 (2021), pp. 4596-4618

"Drawing on a qualitative analysis of 7,506 tweets by state-sponsored accounts from Russia’s GRU and the Internet Research Agency (IRA), Iran, and Venezuela, this article examines the gender dimensions of foreign influence operations. By examining the political communication of feminism and women� ... more

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Fake News Misinformation and Hate Speech in Ethiopia: A Vulnerability Assessment

Brussels: European Institute of Peace (2021), 22 pp.

"The assessment found that Ethiopia's media ecosystem's weaknesses have made it vulnerable to fake news, misinformation, and hate speech. Some of the driving factors are undoubtedly historical, including the weak state of private media in Ethiopia, the critical role of the Ethiopian diaspora in medi ... more

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The COVID-19 Story: Unmasking China's Global Strategy

Louisa Lim, Julia Bergin, Johan Lidberg

International Federation of Journalists (IFJ) (2021), 7 pp.

"China has used Covid to benefit its global image through the activation of existing media dissemination channels overseas and the use of new tactics such as disinformation and misinformation. China’s largescale medical diplomacy campaign has also provided propaganda wins in many developing countr ... ies, burnishing Beijing’s image as a reliable partner. Anecdotal reports indicate that Beijing has stepped up its content offerings, in particular by tailoring content including disinformation for specific countries and translating state-run messages into local languages. In some countries, China was also seen as the purveyor of the most accurate information about the new coronavirus, showing its growing influence over global narratives. For Beijing, Covid diplomacy clearly offers another means through which it can exert its influence. This research shows that countries that are recipients of China’s Covid vaccine clearly have more positive coverage of China, but it cannot draw conclusions as to the factors behind that. This strategy has largely been acceptable to global journalists, who — judging by the results of our focus groups in three separate countries — do not perceive China’s advances as a threat at a national level. Such views are in part due to the incremental nature of the changes, the clumsiness of China’s propaganda effort and the irrelevance of much of the material provided to local audiences. However, the survey does reveal that when viewed globally, there does appear to be more concern about China’s influence, in particular in the Asia Pacific region. The survey indicates that the overall impact of Beijing’s outreach is a redrawing of the global media landscape — one story at a time, one country at a time — shifting the China coverage in a more positive direction. China is using a multi-pronged approach to redraw the information landscape to benefit its own global image. In 2020, Beijing effectively shut down journalistic access to China, through visa denials and freezes, partly driven by international border closures. This had the effect of creating a vacuum in China coverage, creating a demand for stories from China, which could then be filled with statesponsored content already available through content-sharing agreements." (Conclusions, page 7) more

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Democracy and Fake News

Serena Giusti, Elisa Piras (eds.)

London; New York: Routledge (2021), xiv, 232 pp.

"This book explores the challenges that disinformation, fake news, and post-truth politics pose to democracy from a multidisciplinary perspective. The authors analyse and interpret how the use of technology and social media as well as the emergence of new political narratives has been progressively ... more

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Tackling Kremlin's Media Capture in Southeast Europe: Shared Patterns, Specific Vulnerabilities and Responses to Russian Disinformation
Deep Insights

Rumena Filipova, Alexander Gerganov, Martin Vladimirov

Sofia: Center for the Study of Democracy (CSD) (2021), 124 pp.

"The current report illuminates the scope, means, and reach of Russia’s sharp power influence through the phenomenon of media capture. It traces the regime’s malign impact on good governance and democratic development in eight Southeast European countries (EU members: Bulgaria and Croatia, as we ... more

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Of Social Discipline and Control: The Impact of Fake News and Disinformation on Minorities in Indonesia

Ric Neo, Jason DC Yin, Albert Au

Association for Progressive Communications (APC) (2021), 28 pp.

"1. The findings reveal the disproportionate impact fake news has on minority communities in Indonesia, including psychological stress, economic damage, sexual and physical violence and harm. 2. It sheds light on how fake news has been weaponized by hegemonic groups in society to both amass various ... more

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Disinformation Primer
Key Guides

Joshua Machleder, Shannon Maguire et al.

USAID (2021), 96 pp.

"This primer presents an overview of disinformation culture to give readers a sense of key concepts, terminology, select case studies, and programmatic design options. Disinformation is by no means new. Although social media platforms have emerged as the most efficient spreaders of false information ... more

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A Systematic Literature Review on Disinformation: Toward a Unified Taxonomical Framework

Eleni Kapantai, Androniki Christopoulou, Christos Berberidis, Vassilios Peristeras

New Media & Society, volume 23, issue 5 (2021), pp. 1301-1326

"There is no commonly agreed typology framework, specific categorization criteria, and explicit definitions as a basis to assist the further investigation of the area. Our work is focused on filling this need. Our contribution is twofold. First, we collect the various implicit and explicit disinform ... more

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The Psychology of Fake News

Gordon Pennycook, David G. Rand

Trends in Cognitive Sciences, volume 25, issue 5 (2021), pp. 388-402

"We synthesize a burgeoning literature investigating why people believe and share false or highly misleading news online. Contrary to a common narrative whereby politics drives susceptibility to fake news, people are ‘better’ at discerning truth from falsehood (despite greater overall belief) wh ... more

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El periodismo ante la desinformación

Andrés Martínez Zalamea, Daniel Marquínez Fernández, Karen De la Hoz Rodríguez

Cartagena: Fundación Gabo (2021), 66 pp.

"Este libro digital descargable de la Fundación Gabo es una macro-relatoría, un esfuerzo por sintetizar y difundir el conocimiento emanado de una serie de actividades -talleres, clases magistrales, charlas- que llevamos a cabo en el marco del Festival Gabo 2020, el cual tuvo como uno de sus temas ... more

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YouTube Regrets: A Crowdsourced Investigation Into YouTube's Recommendation Algorithm

Jesse McCrosky, Brandi Geurkink

Mozilla (2021), 39 pp.

"YouTube is the second-most visited website in the world, and its algorithm drives 70% of watch time on the platform—an estimated 700 million hours every single day. For years, that recommendation algorithm has helped spread health misinformation, political disinformation, hateful diatribes, and o ... more

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Information Bedlam: Russian and Chinese Information Operations During Covid-19

Edward Lucas, Jake Morris, Corina Rebegea

Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA) (2021), 20 pp.

"Based on a literature review through January 2021, evaluated at an expert seminar, this policy brief provides a baseline analysis of changing tactics, narratives, and distribution strategies in Russian and Chinese information operations (IOs) relating to the covid-19 pandemic. Key findings: China c ... more

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Fighting Fake News: A Study of Online Misinformation Regulation in the Asia Pacific

Andrea Carson

Melbourne: La Trobe University (2021), xvi, 117 pp.

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Political messaging and information disorder during the 2020 Ghanaian elections: A multi-study analysis of verified misinformation and political social media engagement

Adedeji Adekunle

Abuja: Premium Times Centre for Investigative Journalism (PTCIJ) (2021), 37 pp.

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Information Saves Lives: Tackling Rumors, Myths and Misinformation in the COVID-19 Outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo

Arcata, Calif.; Washington, DC: Internews; USAID (2021), 24 pp.

"In the Eastern DRC where the 10th Ebola epidemic was coming to an end, the advent of COVID-19 raised additional concern of dealing with two major health emergencies at the same time with implications for effective audience engagement, and compliance to public health measures. These concerns came ag ... more

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The Road Ahead: Mapping Civil Society Responses to Disinformation

Samantha Bradshaw, Lisa-Maria Neudert

Washington, DC: National Endowment for Democracy (NED) (2021), 27 pp.

"Civil Society Organisations (CSOs) bring a wide range of skill sets to the problem of digital disinformation. Some organizations focus on digital media literacy and education; others engage in advocacy and policy work. Another segment has developed expertise in fact-checking and verification. Other ... organizations have developed refined technical skills for extracting and analyzing data from social media platforms. This research yielded several clear observations about the state of CSO responses to disinformation and, in turn, suggests several recommendations for paths forward. • Prioritize Skill Diffusion and Knowledge Transfer. Civil society organizations seeking funding for counter-disinformation initiatives should emphasize the importance of skill diffusion and knowledge-transfer initiatives. The siloed nature of disinformation research points to a growing need to blend technical expertise with deep cultural and political knowledge. • CSO researchers lack sufficient access to social media data. Survey respondents identified insufficient access to data as a challenge. Sometimes data are not made available to CSOs; in other instances, data are made available in formats that are not workable for meaningful research purposes. Unequal access to the data that private companies do provide can exacerbate regional inequities, and the nature of data sharing by social media platforms can unduly shape the space for inquiry by civil society and other researchers. Funders, platforms, and other key actors should develop approaches that provide more consistent, inclusive data access to CSOs. • Duplicative programming hampers innovation. CSOs drawing on similar tools, approaches, and techniques to meet similar goals pointed to three main factors preventing more specialized, innovative initiatives: lack of coordination, lack of specific expertise, and lack of flexible funding. Community building and collaboration among relevant organizations deserve more investment, as do initiatives that partner larger, established organizations with smaller or growing ones, or pool efforts, skill sets, and expertise to encourage diverse research by design rather than by coincidence. • Relationships with tech platforms vary across regions. Surveyed CSOs often held simultaneously skeptical and positive opinions about their relationships with social media companies. Some receive preferential access to data and even funding for their work (raising concerns about independence), while others report a lack of responsiveness from company representatives. In the Global South and Eastern Europe, many CSOs expressed concern that platforms failed to meaningfully engage with them on issues of critical concern. • More flexible funding and more diverse research are both necessary. To encourage greater platform accountability across varied geographic contexts, CSOs and their funders should draw on the perspectives of specific, under-analyzed communities." (Executive summary, page 3-4) more

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How Journalists Can Address Misinformation on Telegram

Bermet Talant

Oxford: Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism (2021), 35 pp.

"As of July 2021, Telegram had 550 million active users worldwide – more than the individual user bases of Twitter, Snapchat or Discord. It is the fifth most-popular messaging app after Facebook-owned Whatsapp and Messenger, and WeChat and QQ which dominate the Chinese market [...] For this paper, ... more

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Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond
Key Guides

Daniel Arnaudo, Samantha Bradshaw, Hui Hui Ooi, Kaleigh Schwalbe, Amy Studdart, Vera Zakem, Amanda Zink

National Democratic Institute (NDI); International Republican Institute (IRI); Stanford Internet Observatory (2021), 59 pp.

"The playbook approach consists of how to (1) identify ongoing information manipulation campaigns; (2) develop real-time and short-term responses; and (3) build long-term resilience to information manipulation. While we outline three distinct steps in this playbook, the process for combating informa ... more

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Disinformation in Iraqi Media

Aida Al-Kaisy

London: LSE Middle East Centre; Conflict Research Programme (CRP) (2021), 21 pp.

"This paper examines the key narratives of disinformation that are prevalent in Iraqi media. It provides an analysis of the messages, agents, intentions and impact of the spread of disinformation. Focusing particularly on the period during which planned national elections were postponed, it identifi ... more

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Fake News is Bad News: Hoaxes, Half-Truths and the Nature of Today's Journalism

Ján Visnovský, Jana Radosinská (eds.)

Intech Open (2021), 260 pp.

"The publication is focused on the ways fake news, disinformation, misinformation and hateful statements are spread across society, predominantly within the online environment. Its main ambition is to offer an interdisciplinary body of scholarly knowledge on fake news, disinformation and propaganda ... more

Tackling Kremlin's Media Capture in Southeast Europe: Shared Patterns, Specific Vulnerabilities and Responses to Russian Disinformation Deep Insights

Disinformation Primer Key Guides

Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond Key Guides

Tackling Kremlin's Media Capture in Southeast Europe: Shared Patterns, Specific Vulnerabilities and Responses to Russian Disinformation
Deep Insights

Disinformation Primer
Key Guides

Combating Information Manipulation: A Playbook for Elections and Beyond
Key Guides