"The “Georgian Elections Observatory (#GEObservatory24)” was a short-term initiative aimed at fact-checking pre-election narratives leading up to the parliamentary elections on October 26, 2024, together with a few immediate post-election analyses. Unlike traditional fact-checking platforms, thi
...
s project analysed entire narratives, combining political analysis with media scrutiny to provide a compre hensive understanding of the pre-election discourse. The project was supported by the Swedish Fojo Media Institute, the Georgian Investigative Media Lab (IML), and the University of Georgia (UG) Security, Policy, and Nationalism Research Center (UGSPN). This Fojo Media Insight offers several critical lessons for journalism, particularly in covering elections and political narratives such as the importance of comprehensive narrative analysis, the role of historical context, the manipulation of fear and utilisation of conspiracy theories, the instrumentalisation of identity issues, such as religion and theories. The discussion on electoral legitimacy highlights the critical role of the media in ensuring transparent and fair elections. Finally, this working paper underscores the need for international collaboration in journalism." (Back cover)
more
"This study observes content-related indicators of the editorial decisions made by factcheckers during the 2022 Brazilian run-off election. Specifically, it aims to investigate factcheckers’ outputs regarding verification genres, scrutinized actors, types of verified falsehoods, and inspected plat
...
forms. The focus on Brazil stems from its reputation as a disinformation hub, owing to social polarization, populist communication, high social media use, low media trust, and intense WhatsApp penetration. Consequently, factchecking agencies have proliferated within Brazil’s media landscape. To provide some hints about the fact-checkers’ editorial choices, we conducted a quantitative content analysis of verification articles (n = 349) published during the second round of the presidential election by four leading fact-checking organizations: Lupa and Aos Fatos (independents), Estadão Verifica (press), and AFP Checamos (global news agency). The results reveal a prioritization of combating online falsehoods (82.2%) spread by anonymous sources, as opposed to verifying public figures’ statements (5.5%), a trend already observed in other media systems. Although Meta’s social networks and Twitter are primarily monitored, other platforms such as TikTok, Kwai, and Telegram are increasingly gaining fact-checkers’ attention. Fact-checkers predominantly scrutinized anonymous disinformation agents. Moreover, they primarily debunked falsehoods targeting the opposition, legacy media, social networking companies, and the Supreme Electoral Court. Despite the anonymity, 77.4% of the verified falsehoods were found to be beneficial to Bolsonaro, while 12% were advantageous to Lula da Silva." (Abstract)
more
"We use the concept of hagiography to analyze the absurd content found in the memes that circulated after the first round of Chile’s 2021 presidential election. We examined 201 video and image memes to elucidate how the supporters of the then-candidate Gabriel Boric created a narrative of the poli
...
tical moment. A qualitative multimodal analysis shows the use of absurdity to create a heroic idealization of the leftist politician who eventually won the presidency. Social media users depicted the election as a climactic moment where democracy was in danger and portrayed Boric as the hero who appeared at just the right moment with the right message. The term hagiography refers to stories about saints that were read collectively and contributed to the creation of worship communities in medieval Europe. This notion, together with multimodal analysis, helps us understand absurdity not only as a matter of form and content but also as a mode of interaction mediated by memes." (Abstract)
more
"This study analyses 14,854 news articles about refugees from 72 English-language newspapers worldwide in 2016. Using a combination of topic modelling and network analysis, we inductively identify the frames used to depict refugees and then examine the factors that help shape the news framing of the
...
issue between various countries. We unveiled five frames: cultural and everyday life, Global North politics, aid, violence and international conflict. We also identified significant correlations between distance to country of origin and political stability and news frame usage, giving insights into the political, economic and cultural contexts that interact in the frame-building stage of the coverage of refugees in different countries. From a theoretical perspective, this study advances the understanding of news coverage of refugees, particularly the differences emerging between the Global North and the Global South countries." (Abstract)
more
"In this paper, we identified seven most widely spread conspiracy discourses about earthquakes. These conspiracy discourses link earthquakes to military activities like secret nuclear bomb testing, God’s Providence like the punishment of humans for their sins, space activities like aliens visiting
...
our planet, the US secret weather control program HAARP, tests of the Large Hadron Collider, fracking projects, and freemasonic plots. Following the major earthquake in Indonesia at the end of November 2022, we extracted data from Twitter by keywords using the Hoaxy tool for tracking the spread of information on Twitter. Applying the Bot Sentinel tool, we also got data on the sentiment of the users. The divine and military discourses dominated the conspiracy discussion, followed by the discussions about extraction and HAARP. Though there were more human-like accounts than bot-like accounts, we found a positive correlation between the frequency of tweets on the conspiracy discourses and the bot scores of the accounts, which suggests that bot-like accounts were tweeting more than human-like accounts. It was also found that normal accounts tweeted more than toxic accounts, and there was a positive relationship between the bot score and the toxicity level of an account. It suggests that bot-like accounts were involved more in disruptive activities than human-like accounts." (Abstract)
more
"Analysis of over 850 advertisers between 1 September and 23 November 2022 showed a small cohort drove the majority of false or greenwashed advertising on Facebook, with activity peaking in the weeks preceding and during COP27. Common techniques included ‘nature-rinsing’, to distract and mislead
...
audiences on net zero targets, as well as denial of climate science and emotional messaging around livelihoods, national security and sovereignty in relation to fossil fuels. Given the advertising spend identified, it is probable these messages were viewed by a wide audience at a key juncture in the climate agenda". (page 10) [...] "At COP26, outright denialism was seemingly outpaced by subtler ‘discourses of delay’ and attacks on climate action. In 2022, denialist content made a stark comeback on Twitter in particular, with the hashtag #ClimateScam spiking out of nowhere in July 2022. Since then, CAAD analysis has recorded over 362k mentions (including retweets) originating from over 91k unique users, with daily mentions never dropping below 1000 posts. The term often appears to be trending despite data that shows more activity and engagement on other hashtags such as #ClimateCrisis and #ClimateEmergency. The source of its virality, including explicit promotion via Twitter’s recommendation algorithm, is therefore unclear, and again highlights the need for transparency on how and why platforms surface content to users." (Page 17)
more
"During the six months of the gender-based disinformation study (January 1 – June 30, 2023), the following trends were revealed: A total of 42 cases of gendered disinformation were identified, of which 24 were homophobic and 18 were sexist or attacked women based on moral criteria. In most cases,
...
the target of homophobic or gendered disinformation was the West, while false content related to Ukraine was predominantly homophobic. In connection with internal socio-political processes in Georgia, disinformation was directed against politicians, persons associated with them, journalists, and civic activists, who, in addition to disinformation, were targeted in discrediting campaigns." (Key findings, page 8)
more
"Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine dominates observed Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference (FIMI) activity. Ukraine and its representatives have been the direct target of 33 incidents. In 60 out of 100 incidents, supporting the invasion was the main motivation behind the attack. D
...
iplomatic channels are an integral part of FIMI incidents. Russia's diplomatic channels regularly serve as enablers of FIMI operations. They are deployed across wide range of topics. China also uses diplomatic channels, mostly targeting the US. Impersonation techniques become more sophisticated. Impersonations of international and trusted organisations and individuals are used by Russian actors particularly to target Ukraine. Print and TV media are most often impersonated, with magazines seeing their entire style copied. FIMI actor collusion exists but is limited. Official Russian actors were involved in 88 analysed FIMI incidents. Chinese actors were involved in 17. In at least 5 cases, both actors engaged jointly. FIMI is multilingual. Incidents do not occur in just one language; content is translated and amplified in multiple languages. Incidents featured at least 30 languages, 16 of which are EU-languages. Russia used a larger variety of languages than Chinese actors but 44% of Russian content targeted a Russian-speaking populations, while 36% targeted English-speaking populations. FIMI is mostly intended to distract and distort. Russia (42%) and China (56%) mostly intend to direct attention to a different actor or narrative or to shift blame ('distract'). Russia attempts to change the framing and narrative ('distort') relatively more often (35%) than China (18%). FIMI remains mostly image and video based. The cheap and easy production and distribution of image and video material online makes these formats still the most commonly used." (Executive summary)
more
"Despite increased academic attention’s focus on conspiracy theories on Telegram, existing research has two major limitations: (1) a lack of combined examination of the distribution and reception of conspiracy theories, and (2) insufficient understanding of the relationship between the reception o
...
f conspiracy messages and political attitudes, conspiracy beliefs, or political engagement. To address these gaps, our study adopts a two-pronged approach, linking the distribution and reception of conspiracy theories and mobilization calls on Telegram while exploring the implications for recipients’ conspiracy beliefs and protest behavior. Our research design includes a manual content analysis of 3,162 Telegram posts from German conspiracy-related channels (Study 1), and a survey of 318 Telegram users in these channels and 320 traditional media users (Study 2). Our results reveal characteristics of Telegram fringe group users that make them susceptible to conspiratorial and mobilizing content, such as anti-system attitudes and a readiness for protest behavior. These findings have broader implications for understanding the role of digital media in the spread of conspiracy theories and the mobilization of resistance during crises, as well as the importance of continued research on the relationship between digital media use, political attitudes, and engagement to mitigate the negative impacts of conspiracy theories and preserve democratic values." (Abstract)
more
"L'information economique et sociale occupe la 3eme position des rubriques favorites, derriere le sport et la sante (la 5e pour les femmes). 65% des sondes declarent la suivre mais seulement 5% des 18-24 ans la suivent « regulierement ». 34 % des 18-24 ans n'ont recours a aucun des medias traditio
...
nnels pour la suivre. Les medias traditionnels (76 %) sont talonnes par les reseaux sociaux (61 %) mais sont deja depasses parmi les categories socio-professionnelles les moins precaires et chez les 18-34 ans. Le mode de traitement des medias traditionnels releve dans plus d'un cas sur deux d'un journalisme « assis » de compte-rendu. 15 % des repondants suivent les publications d'un « influenceur » economique ou social sur les reseaux sociaux. 96,5 % des repondants privilegient des contenus en arabe. 70 % des Tunisien.ne.s ne sont pas satisfaits des contenus ; 87 % estiment que les themes n'ont rien a voir avec leur vie quotidienne et 64 % que le traitement n'est pas clair et difficile a comprendre. Les journalistes economiques et sociaux sont consideres comme dependants du pouvoir politique (47 %) et de l'argent (46 %). 2,5 % des repondants declarent ecrire des contributions sur ce theme sur les reseaux sociaux (et 7 % chez les plus de 55 ans)." (L'étude en 10 chiffre clés, page 16)
more
"A total of 4,094 news stories were collected and analysed across 12 selected media outlets for a period of one month, from 2 January 2023 to 31 January 2023, by trained monitors. This study revealed a grim picture of women’s under-representation and misrepresentation in Cambodian news. This is a
...
call to action for media owners and managers, senior editors, journalists, journalist associations to be intentional about women’s presence and portrayal in the news, to report the news from women’s perspectives and to regard women in news as an everyday topic rather than a marginalised topic. It is also a call to action to the Royal Government of Cambodia to support the Ministry of Women’s Affairs to monitor women’s presence and portrayal in news and in media outlets and to call out breaches to the Joint Prakas On Media Code of Conduct for Reporting on Violence Against Women, and to redress the gender imbalance of government spokespeople across all Ministries. This study did not extend to examining the impact on society of women being under-represented and misrepresented in news. Nevertheless, we do know that news media help shape public discourse and who or what is selected to appear in the news and how individuals are portrayed can influence people’s attitudes, beliefs and behaviours (Flood & Pease, 2009).
more
"Since October 2016, Cameroon has been involved in a violent conflict known as the Anglophone Crisis. This study examines the impact of the hashtag #MyAnglophoneCrisisStory on Twitter in capturing and amplifying the stories of people affected by the crisis. Using R, the authors extracted and analyze
...
d tweets using this hashtag that were posted between 21 October 2020 and 3 November 2020. Only tweets posted in English and French languages were included. To understand the content of the tweets, the authors inductively coded and manually analyzed a total of 1064 tweets, replies, and comments. A categorical analysis revealed the presence of three different types of tweets: ‘Story’, ‘Response to Story’, and ‘Awareness and Advocacy’. The ‘Story’ category had four distinct themes: (1) Senseless Loss of Life: Shot and Killed; (2) The Disappeared: Lost and Kidnapped; (3) On the Move/Elusive Safety: Escape, Displacement; and (4) Prevention and Trauma, Mental Health, and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. This study supports the concept that even short tweets can have a significant impact and signals the need for more attention and research on this overlooked conflict. Future work can involve the use of more advanced analysis tools to conduct a more thorough examination of tweets." (Abstract)
more
"Objective: We explore how gender-related internet-based conversations in Nigeria specifically related to sexual consent (actively agreeing to sexual behavior), lack of consent, and slut-shaming (stigmatization in the form of insults based on actual or perceived sexuality and behaviors) manifest the
...
mselves and whether they changed between 2017 and 2022. Additionally, we explore what role events or social movements have in shaping gender-related narratives in Nigeria. Methods: Social listening was carried out on 12,031 social media posts (Twitter, Facebook, forums, and blogs) and almost 2 million public searches (Google and Yahoo search engines) between April 2017 and May 2022. The data were analyzed using natural language processing to determine the most salient conversation thematic clusters, qualitatively analyze time trends in discourse, and compare data against selected key events. Results: Between 2017 and 2022, internet-based conversation about sexual consent increased 72,633%, from an average 3 to 2182 posts per month, while slut-shaming conversation (perpetrating or condemning) shrunk by 9%, from an average 3560 to 3253 posts per month. Thematic analysis shows conversation revolves around the objectification of women, poor comprehension of elements of sexual consent, and advocacy for public education about sexual consent. Additionally, posters created space for sexual empowerment and expressions of sex positivity, pushing back against others who weaponize posts in support of slut-shaming narrative. Time trend analysis shows a greater sense of empowerment in advocating for education around the legal age of consent for sexual activity, calling out double standards, and rejecting slut-shaming. However, analysis of emotions in social media posts shows anger was most prominent in sexual consent (n=1213, 73%) and slut-shaming (n=226, 64%) posts. Organic social movements and key events (#ArewaMeToo and #ChurchToo, the #SexforGrades scandal, and the #BBNaija television program) played a notable role in sparking discourse related to sexual consent and slut-shaming." (Abstract)
more
"In order to spread Russian narratives about Ukraine that create a false impression of the country among external and internal audiences, the Russian Federation uses a whole complex of information and communication channels. Their main task is to replace the target audience's existing ideas about th
...
e real, factual state of affairs with ideas that are considered to be more beneficial to the aggressor country. Russia rejects democratic principles and Ukraine's desire for a European future. Depending on the tasks and results (successes/failures) of operations to influence the internal politics of Ukraine and the formation of its image among the Western audience, Russian narratives changed from a presentation of Ukrainians and Russians as “brotherly” peoples or even one people to the importance of the complete extermination of "Ukrainian nationalists and Nazis," denial of the very existence of Ukrainians as a distinct ethnic group (thereby “justifying” genocide), returning supposed "historical territories of Russia," and promoting the idea that Ukraine has never really been a proper state or is a historic mistake. The narratives of Russian propaganda intertwine, sometimes reinforcing and sometimes contradicting each other. But whatever the Russian narrative may be, its main goal is to undermine Ukraine’s democratic development and its integration into the Western world, to weaken the desire of Ukrainians to determine their future outside Russian influence, within the European family, as well as to weaken international support for Ukraine. The Kremlin's disinformation campaign led to the emergence of a number of stereotypes that influenced the decision-making of Ukraine's partners at the beginning of the full-scale invasion, which led to numerous human casualties, the destruction of Ukrainian economy and infrastructure, and a real threat to the country’s territorial integrity and sovereignty. Fortunately, Ukraine has persevered. Unbreakable people of an unbreakable country continues its fight not only for itself but the whole democratic world." (Summary)
more
"This article investigates how all the main quality and tabloid newspapers and the television newscasts of the main broadcasters in Czechia and Slovakia framed immigrants, what the tone of the employed frames was, and who the main framing actors were before and during the EU refugee crisis (2013–2
...
016). Using quantitative content analysis (N = 7,910), we show that security and cultural frames are most commonly employed while the victimization frame is much less common. Whereas tabloids use the security and cultural frames more often, the victimization, economic and administrative frames are more often invoked in quality media. We also show that the framing of immigrants is predominantly negative, and that the security and cultural are the most negatively valenced frames. Finally, we document a dominance of political actors and the practical invisibility of immigrants and refugees in the media coverage." (Abstract)
more
"1. Expansive reach and influence of WhatsApp groups: The study findings indicate that WhatsApp groups have a remarkably wide reach, potentially connecting with three quarters of WhatsApp users in Lebanon. These groups are part of larger networks, which enhances the dissemination of content. Moreove
...
r, their cost-effectiveness for advertising, compared to platforms like Facebook, makes them a formidable tool for targeted information dissemination. 2. Dominant themes and regional variation in conversations: The analysis revealed that conversations in the 37 sampled groups revolved mainly around key themes such as livelihood, security, politics, and foreign countries’ involvement in Lebanon. Interestingly, there were regional variations in the content promoted and more specifically in fear-oriented news, reflecting the different concerns prevalent in various areas. 3. Sensationalism, speculation, and fearmongering: WhatsApp groups frequently employ sensationalized language, unverified speculations, and a focus on dramatic events. These practices contribute to an atmosphere of anxiety and uncertainty among the public, potentially influencing behaviors, including purchasing trends and political opinion-shaping. 4. Mis- and disinformation: The study highlighted the pervasive spread of false or misleading information, particularly during sensitive periods, where it can be used to exploit or manipulate public sentiment. Notable examples include unreliable earthquake predictions and the case of Sheikh Al Rifai’s murder." (Conclusion, page 38)
more
"Holding the greatest area of rainforest in the world, Brazil has seen the adoption of a far-right anti-environmental agenda under the administration of Jair Bolsonaro. This agenda was backed by a transnational infrastructure of right-wing media outlets on online platforms, including the conservativ
...
e YouTube channel Brasil Paralelo. Our research attempted to understand how environmental conspiracies in Brasil Paralelo’s documentary Cortina de Fumaça (in English, smokescreen) took advantage of both digital platform affordances and political alignment with the far-right government to gain social adherence and relevance. By carrying out topic modeling on more than 13,000 comments and network analysis of 982 recommended videos on YouTube, we aimed to analyze the following: (1) which narratives fostered in the documentary have reverberated among the audience that published comments on its YouTube page and (2) what type of video does YouTube recommend for users who watched Cortina de Fumaça. Our results show that far-right anti-environmental discourse is instrumentalized as yet another component of modern culture wars, where environmental conspiracies are placed side by side with other conspiratorial claims regarding politics, gender, religion, and other ideological subjects." (Abstract)
more
"The Russian war against Ukraine illustrates how the disinformation ecosystem works in Hungary, and it also reveals its devastating impact on democratic public discourse. Public service media play a prominent role in spreading disinformation. We were able to identify several false narratives in the
...
period of the first year since the start of the war. In the first few months of the war, a key element of disinformation that was being spread in Hungary suggested that Ukraine had provoked the armed conflict. Later, the prevailing message was that only Hungary wanted peace, while the Western powers were interested in a continuation of the war. During autumn, the focus of the disinformation campaign increasingly shifted to the EU, disseminating an anti-EU message that was more concerned with the sanctions than the war. The pro-government media constantly told news consumers that the economic difficulties and the rise in energy prices had not been caused by the war launched by Russia but by the sanctions that the EU had imposed in response to the aggression. Public opinion research clearly shows the impact of these narratives on the perceptions of the Hungarian public. The polls readily capture how the Hungarian public's opinion has changed over time. This study is primarily based on a content analysis of the relevant shows of the M1 public television channel, but we have also relied on some insights from public opinion polls to inform our analysis." (Abstract)
more
"The proliferation of misinformation on social media platforms (SMPs) poses a significant danger to public health, social cohesion and ultimately democracy. Previous research has shown how social correction can be an effective way to curb misinformation, by engaging directly in a constructive dialog
...
ue with users who spread – often in good faith – misleading messages. Although professional fact-checkers are crucial to debunking viral claims, they usually do not engage in conversations on social media. Thereby, significant effort has been made to automate the use of fact-checker material in social correction; however, no previous work has tried to integrate it with the style and pragmatics that are commonly employed in social media communication. To fill this gap, we present VerMouth, the first large-scale dataset comprising roughly 12 thousand claim-response pairs (linked to debunking articles), accounting for both SMP-style and basic emotions, two factors which have a significant role in misinformation credibility and spreading. To collect this dataset we used a technique based on an author-reviewer pipeline, which efficiently combines LLMs and human annotators to obtain high-quality data. We also provide comprehensive experiments showing how models trained on our proposed dataset have significant improvements in terms of output quality and generalization capabilities." (Abstract)
more