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The research project aims to identify how cultural traits and visual components of misinformation impact engagement with misinformation (Acerbi, 2019), through measuring personal and social engagement with the post, and how this engagements differs between age ranges. This research project defines cultural traits as, threat, disgust, and social and political related information. Threat-related information involves content that may pose an emotional or physical danger to an individual or a group of people. Disgust-related information is content that can be related to things like diseases, contaminated items or strange sexual acts that will evoke negative emotions. Social information revolves around the content of celebrities, gossip, and famous brands. Political information can be described as content relating to politicians, laws and other government topics. The visual components of this study include images, headlines and captions. Participants will be provided with a questionnaire that contains 12 posts, with 3 relating to each of the previously mentioned cultural traits, and varying in visual components. The desired intention is to clarify which cultural traits and visual components of information are compelling to different age groups, and how those specific traits/components may make information appear more reliable or interesting.

Progressive Rock

ELCAT Diretor Don Maki talks about the role of community media in civic affairs and education. Presented by the East Longmeadow Historical Society on April 19, 2012.

ELCAT Diretor Don Maki talks about the role of community media in civic affairs and education. Presented by the East Longmeadow Historical Society on April 19, 2012.

xii, 279 p. ; 22 cm

Continuing with our Let's Make America Smart Again series, Neil deGrasse Tyson and comic co-host Chuck Nice welcome astronomer and author David Helfand to discuss science literacy in the misinformation age and what you can do to find the facts.NOTE: StarTalk All-Access subscribers can watch or listen to this entire episode commercial-free. Find out more at https://www.startalkradio.net/startalk-all-access/See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

1st Prize - Blackout - Misinformation in the Age of Social Media by Marissa Boucher, Yuna Chun & Defne Ustundag (Eastern MS)

Scoping review

Scoping review

A panel discussion that goes behind the scenes of the mass media world and explores how, as a citizen, good critical media literacy can lead to intelligent civic engagement. Ben Boyington is an advocate for integrating critical media literacy into K-12 schools, a veteran high school teacher, and the father of two teenagers who are immersed in the worlds of video games, Discord, and Twitch, as well as anime and other visual storytelling. A member of the Media Freedom Foundation board, Ben designs and conducts teacher trainings with his partners at the nonprofit organization Mass Media Literacy. In his daily life, he works with high school students on self-driven learning and builds student-centered programming at a high school in rural Vermont. Ben is also one of the authors behind The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People (Censored Press/Triangle Square Books, 2022). Dr. Gyuri Kepes is an Assistant Professor of Communication at Landmark College in Putney, VT, where he teaches courses in multimedia production, media and communication theory, and leadership. While at Landmark College, Dr. Kepes introduced several initiatives at Landmark, the most ambitious being the creation of a television studio and associated academic programs. In collaboration with a group of Landmark students, Dr. Kepes launched Voices TV in 2021, the College’s first television network. He is a published author in the field of media and information literacy, and frequently presents original research on the topic. Susanna Strothman is a Solution Consultant for Deloitte, the largest professional services firm in the world. They provide audit, consulting, financial advisory, risk management, tax and other services through their member firms. Strothman analyzed social media data for companies like Google, Nestlé, and Uber at Ipsos prior to her work at Deloitte. She now focuses on identifying and sharing mis-, dis-, and malinformation with authorities in the state of California. Her office is at Rockefeller Center in New York City.

Social media enabled a direct path from producer to consumer of contents changing the way users get informed, debate, and shape their worldviews. Such a {\em disintermediation} weakened consensus on social relevant issues in favor of rumors, mistrust, and fomented conspiracy thinking -- e.g., chem-trails inducing global warming, the link between vaccines and autism, or the New World Order conspiracy. In this work, we study through a thorough quantitative analysis how different conspiracy topics are consumed in the Italian Facebook. By means of a semi-automatic topic extraction strategy, we show that the most discussed contents semantically refer to four specific categories: {\em environment}, {\em diet}, {\em health}, and {\em geopolitics}. We find similar patterns by comparing users activity (likes and comments) on posts belonging to different semantic categories. However, if we focus on the lifetime -- i.e., the distance in time between the first and the last comment for each user -- we notice a remarkable difference within narratives -- e.g., users polarized on geopolitics are more persistent in commenting, whereas the less persistent are those focused on diet related topics. Finally, we model users mobility across various topics finding that the more a user is active, the more he is likely to join all topics. Once inside a conspiracy narrative users tend to embrace the overall corpus.

The wide availability of user-provided content in online social media facilitates the aggregation of people around common interests, worldviews, and narratives. Despite the enthusiastic rhetoric on the part of some that this process generates "collective intelligence", the WWW also allows the rapid dissemination of unsubstantiated conspiracy theories that often elicite rapid, large, but naive social responses such as the recent case of Jade Helm 15 -- where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of the civil war in the US. We study how Facebook users consume information related to two different kinds of narrative: scientific and conspiracy news. We find that although consumers of scientific and conspiracy stories present similar consumption patterns with respect to content, the sizes of the spreading cascades differ. Homogeneity appears to be the primary driver for the diffusion of contents, but each echo chamber has its own cascade dynamics. To mimic these dynamics, we introduce a data-driven percolation model on signed networks.

In an era characterized by rapid information exchange and the proliferation of misinformation, media literacy has become a crucial skill for individuals navigating digital landscapes. This paper examines the role of media literacy in combating misinformation, emphasizing its impact on society, education, and democratic processes. The study investigates how misinformation influences public trust, decision making, and societal stability, particularly during major events like elections and public health crises. Key concepts in media literacy, including analysis, evaluation, and creation of media content, are discussed alongside strategies for fostering critical thinking and responsible information consumption. The paper also presents case studies highlighting successful media literacy initiatives worldwide. Ultimately, the research underscores the necessity of equipping individuals with media literacy skills to mitigate the adverse effects of misinformation and enhance informed civic engagement in the digital age. 

In an era characterized by rapid information exchange and the proliferation of misinformation, media literacy has become a crucial skill for individuals navigating digital landscapes. This paper examines the role of media literacy in combating misinformation, emphasizing its impact on society, education, and democratic processes. The study investigates how misinformation influences public trust, decision making, and societal stability, particularly during major events like elections and public health crises. Key concepts in media literacy, including analysis, evaluation, and creation of media content, are discussed alongside strategies for fostering critical thinking and responsible information consumption. The paper also presents case studies highlighting successful media literacy initiatives worldwide. Ultimately, the research underscores the necessity of equipping individuals with media literacy skills to mitigate the adverse effects of misinformation and enhance informed civic engagement in the digital age. 

Platypod is the official podcast of the Committee for the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing. We talk about anthropology, STS, and all things tech. Tune in for conversations with researchers and experts on how technology is shaping our world. This bonus content is a reading from Platypus, the CASTAC Blog.

This empirical study will aim to investigate the ongoing partnership between social media platforms and content moderation, specifically taking a look at human perceptions of free speech and how they may (or may not) change when considering whether the perpetrator of misinformation is or is not human. We aim to gather empirical data to further inform how human vs. AI content moderation needs to be regarded to better enable users with secure information systems while still upholding foundational First Amendment rights.

According to the World Economic Forum, the diffusion of unsubstantiated rumors on online social media is one of the main threats for our society. The disintermediated paradigm of content production and consumption on online social media might foster the formation of homophile communities (echo-chambers) around specific worldviews. Such a scenario has been shown to be a vivid environment for the diffusion of false claims, in particular with respect to conspiracy theories. Not rarely, viral phenomena trigger naive (and funny) social responses -- e.g., the recent case of Jade Helm 15 where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of the civil war in the US. In this work, we address the emotional dynamics of collective debates around distinct kind of news -- i.e., science and conspiracy news -- and inside and across their respective polarized communities (science and conspiracy news). Our findings show that comments on conspiracy posts tend to be more negative than on science posts. However, the more the engagement of users, the more they tend to negative commenting (both on science and conspiracy). Finally, zooming in at the interaction among polarized communities, we find a general negative pattern. As the number of comments increases -- i.e., the discussion becomes longer -- the sentiment of the post is more and more negative.

According to the World Economic Forum, the diffusion of unsubstantiated rumors on online social media is one of the main threats for our society. The disintermediated paradigm of content production and consumption on online social media might foster the formation of homophile communities (echo-chambers) around specific worldviews. Such a scenario has been shown to be a vivid environment for the diffusion of false claims, in particular with respect to conspiracy theories. Not rarely, viral phenomena trigger naive (and funny) social responses -- e.g., the recent case of Jade Helm 15 where a simple military exercise turned out to be perceived as the beginning of the civil war in the US. In this work, we address the emotional dynamics of collective debates around distinct kind of news -- i.e., science and conspiracy news -- and inside and across their respective polarized communities (science and conspiracy news). Our findings show that comments on conspiracy posts tend to be more negative than on science posts. However, the more the engagement of users, the more they tend to negative commenting (both on science and conspiracy). Finally, zooming in at the interaction among polarized communities, we find a general negative pattern. As the number of comments increases -- i.e., the discussion becomes longer -- the sentiment of the post is more and more negative.