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REDACT: Researching Europe, Digitalisation, and Conspiracy Theories

编辑：研究欧洲、数字化和阴谋论

基本信息

批准号：
ES/X004570/1
负责人：
Clare Birchall
金额：
$ 59.8万
依托单位：
King's College London
依托单位国家：
英国
项目类别：
Research Grant
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
英国
起止时间：
2022 至无数据
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=ES%2FX004570%2F1
关键词：
REDACT Researching Europe Digitalisation Conspiracy

项目摘要

The REDACT project will take on board how both the conditions of digitised mediation and political, social and historical contexts shape the content, communities, consequences of and responses to online conspiracy theories today. It will employ a comparative and interdisciplinary framework that combines digital methods, ethnography, and cultural and political discourse analysis to examine the actors, tactics, cultural forms, technologies and audiences involved in the online spread of conspiracy theories in different European regions as well as the tactics that have been developed to combat them. By working with regional and EU-level fact-checking and disinformation-monitoring organisations, the ultimate goal of the research is to make locally relevant recommendations for these organisations, policy makers, media regulators as well as for the internet companies themselves.In recent years, the potential for digital communication to promote cross-cultural understanding, civic engagement and scientific knowledge has increasingly been haunted by the proliferation of mis- and disinformation in the online environment. Digital conspiracy theories are a particularly pervasive, intractable and pernicious form. The rise of right-wing populist movements in many parts of the world, the coronavirus pandemic, and the war in Ukraine have made clear the possible harms that the unconstrained spread of conspiracism in the digital sphere can cause, particularly when it is linked to hate speech, anti-democratic sentiments, justifications for violence, xenophobia and racism. In short, the circulation of conspiracy theories in the online environment poses serious challenges to democracy, science, and even the very idea of objective truth. However, researchers, journalists and politicians tend to simplify the problem, and hence the potential solutions. The focus is usually on the mechanisms of the supply of conspiracy theories online rather than the reasons for the growing demand, and there has been an increasing search for automated ways of detecting and removing offending content. But research often overlooks or underestimates the lived, material conditions and political contexts that inform the development of conspiracist grievances and, therefore, the reasons why people turn to conspiracy theories and stay in conspiracist online communities once they find them. It is tempting to lay all the blame on social media. Equally, there is a tendency to assume that all conspiracy theories are merely irrational, pathological and unrooted in any facts. However, conspiracy theories very often refer to verified information, certified documents and evidence, which they then construct into narratives that are logically implausible but at the same time often highly coherent. Both tendencies can lead to inadequate responses to online conspiracy theories-viewing them merely as inaccurate information or as the result of a deficit of information.As a (digital) humanities-based intervention, the REDACT project will examine the assumptions that inform current ways of framing and combatting online conspiracy theories. REDACT will not approach online conspiracy theories as merely a symptom of post-truth social media, nor as simply a problem of either too little or false information and, therefore, as the same as other forms of mis- and disinformation that can be more easily corrected. Rather, our research proposes that online conspiracy theories need to be understood as a distinctive mode of digital disinformation because they are a form of vernacular knowledge and interpretation rooted in, engaged with and defined by regional and supra-regional political histories. Eschewing a universalising stance, we will be concerned with how regional European experiences with freedom of speech, press freedoms, democratic and epistemological norms, levels of state control, conflict, authoritarianism and propaganda shape online conspiracy theories.

REDACT项目将考虑数字化调解的条件以及政治，社会和历史背景如何塑造当今在线阴谋论的内容，社区，后果和反应。它将采用一个比较和跨学科的框架，结合数字方法，民族志，文化和政治话语分析，以研究参与阴谋论在欧洲不同地区的在线传播的行为者，策略，文化形式，技术和受众，以及已经制定的打击他们的策略。通过与地区和欧盟层面的事实核查和虚假信息监测组织合作，研究的最终目标是为这些组织、政策制定者、媒体监管机构以及互联网公司本身提出与当地相关的建议。近年来，数字通信促进跨文化理解的潜力，公民参与和科学知识日益受到网上错误信息和虚假信息泛滥的困扰。数字阴谋论是一种特别普遍、棘手和有害的形式。右翼民粹主义运动在世界许多地方的兴起、新型冠状病毒大流行以及乌克兰战争清楚地表明，阴谋主义在数字领域的不受约束的传播可能造成危害，特别是当它与仇恨言论、反民主情绪、暴力理由、仇外心理和种族主义有关时。简而言之，阴谋论在网络环境中的传播对民主、科学甚至客观真理的概念都构成了严重挑战。然而，研究人员、记者和政治家倾向于简化问题，从而简化潜在的解决方案。重点通常是在线阴谋论的供应机制，而不是需求增长的原因，并且越来越多地寻求检测和删除违规内容的自动化方法。但研究往往忽视或低估了生活，物质条件和政治背景，这些条件和政治背景为阴谋主义的不满提供了信息，因此，人们转向阴谋论并在发现阴谋论后留在阴谋论网络社区的原因。人们很容易将所有责任归咎于社交媒体。同样，有一种倾向认为，所有阴谋论都是非理性的、病态的、没有任何事实根据的。然而，阴谋论往往是指经核实的信息、经核证的文件和证据，然后将其构建成逻辑上难以置信但同时又往往高度连贯的叙述。这两种倾向都可能导致对网络阴谋论的反应不足--仅仅将其视为不准确的信息或信息不足的结果。作为一项基于（数字）人文的干预措施，REDACT项目将研究为当前构建和打击网络阴谋论的方式提供信息的假设。REDACT不会将在线阴谋论仅仅视为后真相社交媒体的症状，也不会仅仅是信息太少或虚假的问题，因此，与其他形式的错误和虚假信息一样，可以更容易地纠正。相反，我们的研究提出，网络阴谋论需要被理解为一种独特的数字虚假信息模式，因为它们是一种本土知识和解释的形式，植根于区域和超区域的政治历史，并由其定义。避开普遍化的立场，我们将关注欧洲地区在言论自由，新闻自由，民主和认识论规范，国家控制水平，冲突，威权主义和宣传方面的经验如何塑造在线阴谋论。