From the continuing COVID-19 pandemic through the aftermath of the US election to the influence of problematic state and commercial actors, 2021 has been marked by substantial concerns about the impact of mis- and disinformation on individuals, groups, and society as a whole.
The 2021 symposium of the Digital Publics programme presented the latest work by researchers in the QUT Digital Media Research Centre that tackles these information disorders: applying innovative mixed-methods research approaches to trace the dynamics of mis- and disinformation in online and social media; exploring the role of initiatives that seek to combat the spread of problematic information; examining the public discourse around ‘fake news’; and assessing regulatory approaches to mitigating the threat from mis- and disinformation.
Watch the session videos here:
Keynote Speaker
Kate Starbird, University of Washington
Unraveling the Big Lie: Participatory Disinformation and its Threat to Democracy.
Kate Starbird is an Associate Professor at the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering (HCDE) at the University of Washington (UW). Kate’s research is situated within human-computer interaction and the emerging field of crisis informatics—the study of the how social media and other information-communication technologies are used during crisis events.