Browsing HKS Misinformation Review by Issue Date
Now showing items 1-20 of 26
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Blame is in the eye of the beholder: Beyond an ethics of hubris and shame in the time of COVID-19
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)As misinformation and disinformation spread more rapidly and widely than ever before, individuals have been encouraged to be critical consumers of all received information. At the heart of this point of contention is the ... -
Promoting health literacy during the COVID-19 pandemic: A call to action for healthcare professionals
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)The extraordinary spread of misinformation during the COVID-19 pandemic is impressive. And, to public health professionals like us, it’s worrying: We know that good information and good health go hand in hand. Knowing what ... -
Answering impossible questions: Content governance in age of disinformation
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)The governance of online platforms has unfolded across three eras – the era of Rights (which stretched from the early 1990s to about 2010), the era of Public Health (from 2010 through the present), and the era of Process ... -
Identifying patterns to prevent the spread of misinformation during epidemics
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)This paper discusses patterns of public health misinformation observed during infectious disease epidemics. Specifically, we group epidemic-related misinformation into four categories: transmission, prevention, treatment, ... -
Using misinformation as a political weapon: COVID-19 and Bolsonaro in Brazil
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 2020)With over 30,000 confirmed cases, Brazil is currently the country most affected by COVID-19 in Latin America, and ranked 12th worldwide. Despite all evidence, a strong rhetoric undermining risks associated to COVID-19 has ... -
The Relation between Media Consumption and Misinformation at the Outset of the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic in the US
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 2020)A US national probability-based survey during the early days of the SARS-CoV-2 spread in the US showed that, above and beyond respondents’ political party, mainstream broadcast media use (e.g., NBC News) correlated with ... -
Redesigning consent: Big data, bigger risks
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)Over the last decade, the rapid proliferation of social media platforms coupled with the advancement of computational methods for collecting, processing, and analyzing big datasets created new opportunities for social ... -
Signs of a new world order: Italy as the COVID-19 disinformation
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)When Italy became the western center of the COVID-19 outbreak, it also became the focus of a series of states-sponsored coordinated disinformation campaigns. From early March through May 2020, disinformation operations in ... -
Repress/redress: What the “war on terror” can teach us about fighting misinformation
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020)Misinformation, like terrorism, thrives where trust in conventional authorities has eroded. An informed policy response must therefore complement efforts to repress misinformation with efforts to redress loss of trust. At ... -
Answering Impossible Questions: Content Governance in an Age of Disinformation
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 2020-01-14)The governance of online platforms has unfolded across three eras – the era of Rights (which stretched from the early 1990s to about 2010), the era of Public Health (from 2010 through the present), and the era of Process ... -
Russian disinformation campaigns on Twitter target political communities across the spectrum. Collaboration between opposed political groups might be the most effective way to counter it.
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics, and Public Policy, 2020-01-14)Evidence from an analysis of Twitter data reveals that Russian social media trolls exploited racial and political identities to infiltrate distinct groups of authentic users, playing on their group identities. The groups ... -
Breaking Harmony Square: A game that “inoculates” against political misinformation
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020-11)We present Harmony Square, a short, free-to-play online game in which players learn how political misinformation is produced and spread. We find that the game confers psychological resistance against manipulation techniques ... -
Research note: Does the public support fact-checking social media? It depends who and how you ask
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020-11)We analyze original survey data on support for social media companies’ fact-checking of politicians in general and President Trump in particular. We find overwhelming majorities of Democrats support fact-checking in both ... -
The different forms of COVID-19 misinformation and their consequences
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020-11)As the COVID-19 pandemic progresses, an understanding of the structure and organization of beliefs in pandemic conspiracy theories and misinformation becomes increasingly critical for addressing the threat posed by these ... -
Conspiracy and debunking narratives about COVID-19 origins on Chinese social media: How it started and who is to blame
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020-12)This paper studies conspiracy and debunking narratives about the origins of COVID-19 on a major Chinese social media platform, Weibo, from January to April 2020. Popular conspiracies about COVID-19 on Weibo, including that ... -
Tackling misinformation: What researchers could do with social media data
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2020-12) -
The presumed influence of election misinformation on others reduces our own satisfaction with democracy
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2021)Pervasive political misinformation threatens the integrity of American electoral democracy but not in the manner most commonly examined. We argue the presumed influence of misinformation (PIM) may be just as pernicious, ... -
COVID-19 misinformation and the 2020 US presidential election
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2021)Voting is the defining act for a democracy. However, voting is only meaningful if public deliberation is grounded in veritable and equitable information. This essay investigates the politicization of public health practices ... -
COVID-19 disinformation and political engagement among communities of color: The role of media literacy
(Shorenstein Center for Media, Politics and Public Policy, at Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government, 2021)Communities of color, suffering equity gaps and disproportionate COVID-19 effects, also must resist ongoing disinformation campaigns designed to impede their political influence. A representative, national survey (N=1264) ...