CAREER: Unraveling Online Disinformation Trajectories: Applying and Translating a Mixed-Method Approach to Identify, Understand and Communicate Information Provenance

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This project will improve our understanding of the spread of disinformation in online environments. It will contribute to the field of human-computer interaction in the areas of social computing, crisis informatics, and human centered data science. Conceptually, it explores relationships between technology, structure, and human action - applying the lens of structuration theory towards understanding how technological affordances shape online action, how online actions shape the underlying structure of the information space, and how those integrated structures shape information trajectories. Methodologically, it enables further development, articulation and evaluation of an iterative, mixed method approach for interpretative analysis of "big" social data. Finally, it aims to leverage these empirical, conceptual and methodological contributions towards the development of innovative solutions for tracking disinformation trajectories. The online spread of disinformation is a societal problem at the intersection of online systems and human behavior. This research program aims to enhance our understanding of how and why disinformation spreads and to develop tools and methods that people, including humanitarian responders and everyday analysts, can use to detect, understand, and communicate its spread. The research has three specific, interrelated objectives: (1) to better understand the generation, evolution, and propagation of disinformation; (2) to extend, support, and articulate an evolving methodological approach for analyzing "big" social media data for use in identifying and communicating "information provenance" related to disinformation flows; (3) to adapt and transfer the tools and methods of this approach for use by diverse users for identification of disinformation and communication of its origins and trajectories. More broadly, it will contribute to the advancement of science through enhanced understandings and conceptualization of the relationships between technological affordances, social network structure, human behavior, and intentional strategies of deception. The program includes an education plan that supports PhD student training and recruits diverse undergraduate students into research through multiple mechanisms, including for-credit research groups and an academic bridge program.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.