Aarhus 2019
Online disinformation has emerged as one of the most urgent political and democratic issues of recent times. Despite a general understanding of the underlying dynamics behind online disinformation and the availability of generally accepted taxonomies of disinformation, an effective solution is still not available and important aspects are still largely under-researched.
Research on disinformation has already made numerous efforts to understand the cultural and the psychological aspects of the phenomenon, but disciplinary specialization has led scholars to focus mainly either on one or the other aspect – resulting in a general lack of conceptual coherence.
It is thus becoming more and more evident that a solution to the problem cannot be reached without breaking the boundaries between disciplines. This process will have to involve several fields of research and should not be limited to the academic world, and therefore a proper interdisciplinary approach must be adopted.
The first of three NOR-HS workshops on online disinformation will kick off the initial phase of such interdisciplinary collaboration by focusing on the fundamental problem of observing and measuring disinformation: How can we define and measure online disinformation in a holistic way – without being limited by discipline-specific views?
Venue
Aarhus Institute of Advanced Studies (AIAS), Aarhus University, Buildings 1630-1632, Høegh-Guldbergs Gade 6B, 8000 Aarhus C, Denmark. See location on a map.
Keynote speakers
Jennifer Stromer-Galley, Professor in the School of Information Studies at Syracuse University and Director for the Center for Computational and Data Science. She will be talking about conspiracy theory as a dimension of disinformation and propose three streams of research to help mitigate conspiracy theory beliefs. She has been studying “social media” since before it was called social media, studying online interaction and strategic communication in a variety of contexts, including political forums and online games. She is also co-PI on a Twitter Conversational Health grant to study various dimensions of problematic conversation on the platform, and on a WhatsApp grant to study political misinformation in Brazil.
Ben O’Loughlin is Professor of International Relations at Royal Holloway, University of London. Ben’s expertise is in the field of international political communication. He is Co-Editor of the Sage journal Media, War & Conflict, and since 2007 he has carried out a series of grant funded projects on media and security. At the conference, Ben will talk about strategic narratives and peacemaking through Visual Digital Diplomacy.
Leon Derczynski, Assistant Professor at the ITU University of Copenhagen, will talk about fake news, where it comes from, how it spreads (including in Denmark), and why we need technology to catch it. He has been working on online veracity since 2013, first with the EU FP7 Pheme project, which he co-authored while at the University of Sheffield, UK. His background is in artificial intelligence, in the field of Natural Language Processing. He has researched and led implementations of multi- lingual veracity detection systems in Europe, as well as founding the recurring RumourEval evaluation exercise in automatic estimation veracity of claims on the next.
Programme at a glance
Monday, 6 May
09.30-10.00: Registration and coffee
10.00-10.30: Welcome
10.30-11.30: Keynote talk by Leon Derczynski
11.30-14:45: Presentations from researchers
14.45-15.45: Keynote talk by Ben O’Loughlin
15.45-17:30: Opening of EU Center for Research in Social Media and Information Disorder and reception
18:30-21:30: Conference dinner at NO16
Tuesday, 7 May
09.15-09.30: Welcome
09.30-10.30: Keynote talk from Jennifer Stromer-Galley
10.30-17.00: Presentations from researchers and workshop
Download detailed programme
Download abstracts
Registration and conference fee
The conference is open to all and seats are given on a first-come-first-served basis. You can register for free, but participants who are not presenting will be charged a fee for the catering:
- Catering at conference: DKK 400 (~€55,00) (including lunches, coffee/tea, snacks and a VAT of 25 %)
- Conference dinner: DKK 500 (~€65,00) for a conference dinner at NO16 on Monday 6 May (including a VAT of 25 %)
Register here for the conference and conference dinner, if you are not presenting.
Conference dinner
A conference dinner for the presenters will be held at NO16 on Monday 6 May. The dinner is also open for conference participants who paid the add on fee of DKK 500 (~€65,00) for the conference dinner.
Accepted papers Defining and Measuring Abilities to Debunk Disinformation among Swedish Adults Surfacing disinformation by analyzing divergent patterns of social media interactions Using unjustified accusations to ensure attention and spreadability Craving for Chaos and the Sharing of Hostile Political Rumors Why so angry? Understanding hostility in online political discussions Defining an operational definition of disinformation through the fact-checking: toward a new epistemocratic order? Antagonizing the public: how hyperpartisan media use antagonistic tactics to enhance virality and spread disinformation on Facebook Same Same, But different? A Systematic Literature Review of Online Disinformation from a Multidisciplinary Perspective Who disseminates fake news on social media? Individual-level predictors of fake news sharing on Twitter The Platforms of Disinformation: The Case of Contraceptive Information on the Chinese Internet Viral hate: How hate speech spread partisan messages Black Trolls Matter: Sockpuppetry as a Disinformation Tactic in the 2016 US Election
The deadline for paper submissions was 30 March 2019, and we cannot accept anymore papers.
See accepted papers
Thomas Nygren, Associate Professor at the Department of Education, Uppsala University
Mona Guath, PhD at the Department of Psychology, Uppsala University
Anton Axelsson, PhD at the Department of Information Technology, Uppsala University
Fabio Giglietto, Associate Professor at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Nicola Righetti, postdoctoral research fellow at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Giada Marino, PhD candidate at the Department of Communication Sciences, Humanities and International Studies, University of Urbino Carlo Bo
Rebekka Lykke Nørremark, PhD student at the Department of Comparative Literature and Rhetoric, Aarhus University
Michael Bang Petersen, Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University
Mathias Osmundsen, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
Alexander Bor, Post Doc at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University,
Michael Bang Petersen, Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University
Angelina Toursel, PhD student at Laboratoire DeVisu. Univ. Polytechnique Hauts-de-France
Philippe Useille, Assistant Professor at Laboratoire DeVisu. Univ. Polytechnique
Sander Andreas Schwartz, Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Arts, University of Roskilde
Eva Mayerhöffer, Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Arts, University of Roskilde
Sophie Morosoli, PhD candidate at the Department of Political Science, University of Antwerp
Mathias Osmundsen, Assistant Professor at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus University
Michael Bang Petersen, Professor of Political Science at Aarhus University
Elaine Yuan, Associate Professor in Communication at the University of Illinois at Chicago
Dr. Xiyuan Liu, Associate Program Chair and instructor at the Department of Communication of University of Colorado Denver—International College Beijing
Tobias Bornakke, analyst and researcher specialised in social data science and machine learning, co-founder of the cooperative agency Analyse & Tal
Ronnie Taarnborg (Analyse & Tal)
Håvard Lundberg (Analyse & Tal)
Jakob Bæk Kristiansen (University of Canterbury, Christchurch)
Thomas Albrechtsen ( Common Consultancy)
Michael Bossetta, Political and Data Scientist at the University of Copenhagen
Deen Freelon (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Chris Wells (Boston University)
Kirsten Adams (UNC-Chapel Hill)
Yiping Xia (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Josephine Lukito (University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Nordic Network on Disinformation
The project is a collaboration between four Nordic Universities and organized by the following program committee:
- Anja Bechmann, Aarhus University, Denmark
- Matteo Magnani, Uppsala University, Sweden
- Luca Rossi, IT University Copenhagen, Denmark
- Oscar Westlund, Oslo Metropolitan University, Norway
Partners
