Research Collaborative - Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation

I was a postdoctoral fellow on the Source Criticism and Mediated Disinformation (SCAM) team between 2021 - 2023, and continue to collaborate with this group of scholars today. Funded primarily by a $1M grant from the Norwegian Research Council, research activitie included semi-structured interviews with platform representatives, fact-checkers, and journalists across the globe. This project has also entailed a detailed mapping and analysis of hundreds of technologies and tools used by fact-checkers.

This project has so far produced several articles, book chapters, and events–aimed at both scholars and practitioners. Outputs have focused on disinformation in political campaigning, platform and fact-checker relations, and ethical dimensions of leaked platform data.

The group is currently working on a manuscript entitled The Anti- Disinformation Industry, which explores interests, motivations, and agendas of actors involved in the business of countering contemporary disinformation, from fact checkers, journalists, and governments to platform and technology companies. It presents a vision of how the field should reckon with the inequalities and power imbalances in the ‘industry’—especially in the context of advances in artificial intelligence.