"This report investigates the political economy of covert influence in the 2022 Philippine Elections, with a focus on social media influencers involved in covert political campaigning. This interdisciplinary research (1) examines political influencers and peripheral actors in the field engaged in po
...
litical campaigning using qualitative field research methods, (2) maps and evaluates evidence of their participation in covert influence operations through computational social science methods, and (3) estimates political spending on the presumed commissioned influencers through economic modeling. Our research is the first empirical work to produce an assembly of data-informed approximations of the scope and scale of the political economy of covert influence operations. Specifically, it is the first to estimate the economic ‘cost’ of commissioned influencers for electoral influence operations in the Philippines. It also provides a complex but nuanced account of influencers as ‘gray’ political actors who exercise agency in their complicity to covert political campaigning given commensurate economic and political incentives. Amidst undocumented transactions and opaque operations, our research establishes multiple, cross-platform proxy measures of malicious political influencing, beyond established detection mechanisms. We find that thousands of political influencers are presumed to be commissioned to perform covert political campaigning in the 2022 Philippine Elections for top national positions, funded by massive financing by political intermediaries in a largely unstructured and unregulated economic market characterized by asymmetrical political relations." (Executive summary, page 11)
more
"The nature of elections has been transformed by the rise of digital technologies in the last few years, in large part due to the rise of social media platforms and their impact on election campaigning, dissemination of informationand opinion formation. Furthermore, digital technologies have been em
...
ployed in the administration of elections, and are being adopted by electoral management bodies. This article seeks to understand these transformations in light of ongoing debates regarding the regulation of elections and digital technologies by positing an approach focused on international human rights frameworks." (Abstract)
more
"Increasingly, social media has become a major source of fake news, with disinformation used as a tool in manipulating public opinion and delegitimizing opposing voices. This study explores the influence of the content of social media on traditional media, and the proliferation of disinformation in
...
the context of elections and accountability in Nigeria. Data were collected from 60 interviews and 18 focus group discussions with key stakeholders across Nigeria’s geo-political zones. The result shows the content of social media as shaping traditional media in addition to exacerbating pre-existing ethnic and religious tensions. The study recommends strengthening the positive elements of social media to weaken the threat posed by digital disinformation." (Abstract)
more
"Trust is the foundation on which democracy is built. Not coincidentally, it is the main victim of attacks by disinformation merchants bent on undermining the electoral process and the democratic environment. This article outlines the efforts of the Brazilian Superior Electoral Court (TSE) to tackle
...
the effects of ‘information disorder’ on its democratic process, discussing its partnerships with digitalplatforms and civil society to guarantee transparency and to build trust and integrity in electoral processes in Brazil. The TSE aims to increase the electorate’s access to information and its resilience to disinformation, as well as build official mechanisms to respond to these threats. Related decisions issued by the court will also be analysed. The article demonstrates how these initiatives have helped the TSE to reduce disinformation in the electoral information ecosystem and enabled a more informed exercise of the right to vote." (Abstract)
more
"Disinformation represents a danger to the integrity and legitimacy of the electoral process. From our research based on the 2021 Czech parliamentary elections, we introduce a model for measuring the resilience of citizens to disinformation. This model is then used to draw conclusions about the impa
...
ct of disinformation on their voting behaviour. We argue that it is important to understand this impact in the context of pre-existing beliefs and opinions, and therefore in terms of disinformation reinforcing rather than changing existing views. In particular, we demonstrate how feeling disappointed with one political party can make people more inclined to endorse disinformation that targets it." (Abstract)
more
"On average in the 16 countries surveyed, 56% of internet users frequently use social media to stay informed about current events, far ahead of television (44%). However, it is worth noting that differences exist among population groups: television is the primary source in the most developed countri
...
es (55% compared to 37% for social media), while it lags significantly in countries with high (42% vs 63%) or medium/low levels of Human Development Index (HDI) (37% vs 68%) [...] The significance of social media as a source of information, especially during election campaigns, is even more crucial given that citizens believe disinformation is highly prevalent there. Across all 16 countries, 68% of internet users told us that social media is the place where disinformation is most widespread, far ahead of groups on online messaging apps (38%) and media websites/apps (20%). This sentiment is overwhelmingly prevalent in all countries, age groups, social backgrounds, and political preferences. This is even more important and citizens feel that the issue of disinformation is a real threat: 85% express concern about the impact and influence of disinformation on their fellow citizens." (Analysis of key results)
more
"This paper examines the influence of international political actors in perpetuating disinformation in fragile states, using Iraq as a case study. The advent of modern technology and social media has transformed the global information landscape, providing new avenues for the dissemination of disinfo
...
rmation. This study delves into the history of disinformation in Iraq, particularly during and after the fall of the Baathist regime, and investigates how national and international actors utilise disinformation as a political tool. Through three case studies, the overlapping interests of regional, international, and local actors are explored, focusing on their use of social and legacy media platforms to execute influence operations targeting the Iraqi public. The first case study examines the Iranian-aligned Iraqi Radio and Television Union and their deployment of disinformation narratives during the 2021 national election. The second case study investigates unofficial Iranian-aligned Telegram media outlets and their promotion of the Russian narrative in the Russia-Ukraine War. The final case study analyses Pro-China and Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) Facebook influencers in Iraq and their engagement in coordinated inauthentic behavior. By connecting the interactions of these actors, this paper reveals a complex web of disinformation in the Iraqi digital information ecosystem, emphasising the role played by national and international actors in perpetuating it. The findings contribute to a better understanding of disinformation dynamics, enabling more effective strategies to combat disinformation and foster informed and democratic societies." (Abstract)
more
"The study used survey-style descriptive research. All of southwest Nigeria’s media outlets made up the population. 200 respondents made up the study’s sample, using a multistage sampling approach that included stratified random and simple random sampling techniques. A questionnaire titled “Le
...
vel of Safety of Journalists Questionnaire” was used to gather data (LSJQ). The instrument’s reliability was assessed using the Cronbach Alpha technique, and a reliability co-efficient of 0.81 was found. The validity of the instrument was proven through the face and content validity. Both descriptive and inferential statistics were used to examine the data acquired; more specifically, descriptive statistics were utilized for the research question and t-tests were employed for the research hypothesis. The study found a modest level of safety for journalists covering elections, and there is no discernible difference between male and female journalists' perceptions of this safety. Considering the results of this investigation, it was suggested that media organizations step up their efforts by offering the required protective gear to reporters during election seasons. Government and nongovernmental organizations should work together to protect journalists during election seasons. There should be public awareness campaigns and programs against election-related violence against journalists." (Abstract)
more
"This paper offers some insights into Twitter as a political field, based on Bourdieu’s field theory. Networked publics, as agents of this field, are competing overpower by performing networked practices. To investigate this field, we focused on two networked practices: networked framing and narra
...
ting. Persian Twitter in 2017 presidential election provides a good context to analyze how such a field is constituted. Combining a social-network analytic approach with discursive and textual interpretations, we analyzed a corpus of 2,596,284 tweets. We identified three main networked publics in the retweet network: reformists, conservatives, and diaspora users. Having identified the most influential users in each community based on PageRank metric, we thoroughly investigated all of their tweets. The results show that ordinary users constituted the major population of conservative and diaspora publics. The reformist community included mostly journalists and to a lesser extent media. Findings also confirm that all networked publics used the same strategies to gain more power in the field. They produced quite the same frames and narratives to compete with each other. Moreover, the battle was more about the routine and electoral debates, not the legitimacy or entity of regime. Hence, none of the networked publics challenged the hegemonic discourse in Iran significantly." (Abstract)
more
"Patterns of news consumption are changing drastically. Citizens increasingly rely on social media such as Facebook to read and share political news. With the power of these platforms to expose citizens to political information, the implications for democracy are profound, making understanding what
...
is shared duringelections a priority on the research agenda. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet explicitly explored how elections transform news sharing behaviour on Facebook. This study begins to remedy this by (a) investigating changes in news coverage and news sharing behaviour on Facebook by comparing election and routine periods, and by (b) addressing the ‘news gap’ between preferences of journalists and news consumers on social media. Employing a novel data set of news articles (N = 83,054) in Mexico, findings show that during periods of heightened political activity, both the publication and dissemination of political news increases, the gap between the news choices of journalists and consumers narrows, and that news sharing resembles a zero-sum game, with increased political news sharing leading to a decrease in the sharing of other news." (Abstract)
more
"We investigate how dominant media networks can manipulate voters in young democracies. During the first presidential election after the democratic transition in Brazil, TV Globo, the largest and most-watched network in the country, unexpectedly manipulated the news coverage of the last debate 2 day
...
s before the decisive second round. In a video segment, Globo unfavorably depicted the left-wing candidate, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Using the geographical distribution of broadcaster-specific TV signals and the timing of election events, we identify the effect of the manipulation net of the effect of the debate itself, showing that Globo’s misleading reporting caused Lula to lose millions of votes. Our results showcase how the media can reshape an election in a single stroke, especially where the media is concentrated and politically inexperienced voters have few other sources of information." (Abstract)
more
"The purpose of this report is to gain a better understanding of the pertinent dynamics and to bolster the design of programming to support the information ecosystem around elections. In aid of this, UNDP sought information through a number of channels, in a review of the relevant literature, a seri
...
es of regional consultations, expert meetings and a survey [...] The various sources all conclude there remains no single panacea to the ills that information pollution brings upon elections. Rather, there is a variety of information pollution programming around elections, each with its own benefits and deficiencies. In order to support the design of a holistic information integrity strategy, this report suggests that programmes seek to address one or more of the following three concerns (1) prevention—to address the supply side of information pollution by preventing or deterring the creation of information pollution, (2) resilience—building public resilience to information pollution limiting the ability of users to be influenced or co-opted by information pollution and (3) countering—identifying and attempting to counter information pollution." (Summary, page 8-9)
more