Designing Disinformation: Investigating the Role of Communication Design in American Newspapers and Sensationalist News Outlets, 1890-2020

随着网上虚假信息对民主诚信的威胁，这个项目调查了沟通设计在塑造虚假信息在美国产生和调解方面的作用。这项研究将使用历史的视角来描绘虚假信息形式的演变，作为一个棱镜，我们可以通过它来理解今天在线虚假信息的设计。从19世纪耸人听闻的新闻设计范例开始，该项目将确定这些早期形式在数字时代(1990-2020年)对虚假信息的影响和演变。结合历史研究和当代实践者的研究，我将调查在虚假信息激增的背景下，编辑设计师和传播设计的转变机构。这项研究将为虚假信息的研究增加一个新的视角，通过引入一种设计研究方法来调查虚假信息的美学，以及随着时间的推移编辑设计和设计师在新闻生产中的角色变化。该项目旨在确立编辑设计师的道德责任，并确定在哪里可以将设计纳入打击虚假信息的媒体法规中，以维护言论民主。虽然对新闻设计史、虚假信息、设计伦理、新闻和媒体研究的研究都塑造了我的研究问题，但没有一项研究直接涉及虚假信息的美学如何受到设计的影响，以及这对民主和媒体政策的更广泛影响。这些研究也没有与传播设计从业者接触，将他们的研究置于现实生活的背景下。通过结合关于设计伦理、新闻伦理和新媒体法规的建议，该项目将确定如何将设计纳入新的法规，旨在打击虚假信息对民主的负面影响，并塑造在虚假信息渗透的环境中工作的编辑设计师的道德实践标准。通过与英国的合作达到关键距离，该项目将在建构主义-解释主义的框架内进行。受当代设计史方法的启发，该方法结合跨学科的研究方法来调查文物，该项目将使用视觉方法和分析，包括符号学、内容和话语分析以及数字档案研究。尽管总体上是历时性的研究，因为它关注的是随着时间的推移而进行的新闻设计，但我的历史研究将集中在《纽约世界》和《纽约日报》这两家美国第一家臭名昭著的耸人听闻的报纸上，作为比较案例，同步调查耸人听闻的新闻设计形式的起源。一旦进行了分析，我将把数字虚假信息的当代案例研究(1990-2020年)与历史案例进行比较，使用互联网媒介的研究来收集关于排版、布局、插图、摄影和色彩的平行视觉数据，这些数据将构成虚假信息视觉词典的元素，供设计师和虚假信息研究人员使用。在此历史基础上，我将采用设计研究方法，进行观察、半结构化访谈、启发研讨会和成员核查，以收集来自报纸设计学会的从业者的数据，以收集当代编辑设计过程的数据。然后，我将把这些发现与我的历史研究综合起来，得出历史设计和今天的新闻设计之间的联系。在其将设计研究应用于虚假信息的新应用中，该项目的成果将适用于关心虚假信息的轨迹和解决方案的设计师、媒体社区和政治学者。它还将为有关设计历史和设计伦理的学术文献做出贡献。

With threats to the integrity of democracy due to online disinformation, this project investigates the role of communication design in shaping how disinformation is produced and mediated in the United States. The study will use a historical lens to chart the evolution of forms of disinformation, serving as a prism through which we can understand the design of online disinformation today. Beginning with an examination of nineteenth-century examples of sensationalist news design, the project will determine the impact and evolution of these early forms on disinformation in the digital era (1990-2020). Combining historical research and research with contemporary practitioners, I will investigate the shifting agency of editorial designers and communication design within the context of the proliferation of disinformation. The study will add a new perspective to research on disinformation by bringing a design studies approach that investigates the aesthetics of disinformation, as well as the changing role of editorial design and designers in news production over time. The project aims to establish the ethical responsibilities of editorial designers and determine where design can be incorporated into media regulations combatting disinformation to safeguard discursive democracies. Whist studies of news design history, disinformation, ethics in design and journalism and media studies all shape my research questions, none directly address how the aesthetics of disinformation are impacted by design and the broader implications of this for democracy and media policy. These studies also do not engage with communication design practitioners to situate their studies in a real-life context. By combining writing on design ethics, journalism ethics and proposals for new media regulations, this project will determine how design can be incorporated into new regulations aiming to combat the negative impacts of disinformation on democracies and shape the ethical standards of practice for editorial designers working in an environment infiltrated by disinformation. Attaining critical distance by being undertaken from the UK, this project will be conducted within a constructivist-interpretivist framework. Informed by contemporary design historical methodologies, which combine interdisciplinary research methods to investigate artefacts, this project will use visual methods and analysis including semiotic, content and discourse analysis and digital archival research. Although overall a diachronic study, as it is concerned with news design over time, my historical research will focus on the New York World and the New York Journal, the first, infamous sensationalist newspapers in the United States, as comparative case studies to investigate the origins of sensational forms of news design synchronically. Once analysis has been conducted, I will then compare contemporary case studies (1990-2020) in digital disinformation to the historical examples, using internet-mediated research to collect parallel visual data on typography, layout, illustrations, photography and colour, which will constitute the elements of a visual lexicon of disinformation for use by designers and disinformation researchers. Building on this historical foundation, I will then employ a design studies methodology, conducting observations, semi-structured interviews, elicitation workshops and members-checking with practitioners sourced from the Society of Newspaper Design to collect data on the process of contemporary editorial design. I will then synthesize these findings with my historical research to draw connections between historical designs and news design today. In its novel application of design studies to disinformation, the outcomes of this project will be applicable to designers, media communities and political scholars concerned with the trajectory of and solutions to disinformation. It will also contribute to scholarly literature on design history and design ethics.