"This book provides case studies on the strategies used by African governments in monitoring and controlling digital and social media, as well as the implications of such actions for claims about media freedom and freedom of expression. Further, the book examines the human rights challenges posed by
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state control and monitoring of digital and social media forms of communication. In the context of a digital surveillance state, it questions how digital and social media can possibly enhance the democratisation of both the communicative and political spaces. The book focuses on questions of censorship and control of digital and social media in ‘supposedly’ democratic societies. It discusses regulation and how governments have imposed their state power by ‘switching off’ the internet and blocking social media sites under the guise of national security and order maintenance." (Back cover)
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"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
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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)
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"Digital technology has revolutionized how political ads are delivered and consumed, giving political campaigns increased possibilities to target and tailor their messaging to specific audiences—a practice known as political microtargeting (PMT). While PMT has potential benefits for society, it al
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so entails significant risks that have yet to be adequately addressed by regulators around the globe. This report offers fundamental guidance on PMT for policymakers, civil society, and other relevant stakeholders, providing recommendations for action and an overview of possible protective measures. Public discourse has so far mostly focused on PMT cases in the Global North, such as US elections or Brexit, whereas the practice is becoming increasingly adopted worldwide. In lower-income countries, the impact of PMT may be felt even more strongly due to context-specific factors such as lower levels of digital skills and media literacy, higher prevalence of political violence, weaker or non-existent legal and regulatory frameworks, and less resilient democratic institutions. This report contributes to balancing the global coverage by focusing on cases and examples from the Global South. Recent advances in artificial intelligence (AI) have added to the urgency of investigating PMT, as they amplify the capabilities of targeted messaging and intensify the risk of online disinformation though automated generation and manipulation of content." (Executive summary, page 5)
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"Discussions of data-driven campaigning have gained increased prominence in recent years. Often associated with the practices of Cambridge Analytica and linked to debates about the health of modern democracy, scholars have devoted considerable attention to the rise of data-driven politics. However,
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most studies to date have focused solely on practice in the US, and few scholars have made efforts to define the precise meaning of ‘data-driven campaigning’. With growing recognition that data-driven campaigning can take different forms dependent on context and available resource, new questions have emerged as to exactly what features are indicative of this phenomena. In this piece we systematically review existing discussions of data-driven campaigning to unpack the components of this idea. Identifying areas of convergence and divergence in existing discussions of ‘data’, ‘driven’, and ‘campaigning’, we classify existing debate to highlight integral features and variable practices. This article accordingly provides the first comprehensive definition of datadriven campaigning, and aims to facilitate international study of this activity." (Abstract)
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"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
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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)
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"In an era when hashtag campaigns like #MeToo and #BlackLivesMatter capture global attention for victims of injustice, politicians and corporations are now spending billions employing Cambridge Analytica-type consultancies to manufacture disinformation - employing trolls, cyborgs and bots to disrupt
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dialogue and drown-out dissent. In the first study of its kind, this open-access book presents a range of case studies of these emerging dynamics across Africa, mapping and analyzing disinformation operations in ten different countries, and using innovative techniques to determine who is producing and coordinating these increasingly sophisticated disinformation machines. Drawing on scholars from across the continent, case studies document the actors and mechanisms used to profile citizens, manipulate beliefs and behaviour, and close the political space for democratic dialogue and policy debate. Chapters include examinations of how the Nigerian government deployed disinformation when the #EndSARS campaign focused attention on police brutality and corruption; insights into how pro-government actors responded to the viral #ZimbabweanLivesMatter campaign; and how misogynists mobilized against the #AmINext campaign against gender-based violence in South Africa." (Publisher description)
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"This book is the first of its kind within the African region to combine scholarly perspectives from the fields of Strategic Communication Management and Communication for Development and Social Change. It draws insights from scholars across the African continent by unravelling the complementary nat
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ure of scholarship between the two fields, through the lens of prevailing governance and sustainability challenges facing African countries, today. This edited volume covers issues that have adversely affected the achievement of goals related to humanitarian upliftment, development and social change for all African nations. Consequently, citizen participation, which lies at the heart of these challenges when considering the question of sustainable governance and policy development for social change in an African context is addressed. To this end, a reflection is also made on various case studies that exist where local citizens do not inform sustainable development programmes, while the promotion of bottom-up development and social change is largely replaced by top-down instrumental action approaches and hemispheric communication instead of strategic communication." (Publisher description)
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"How has the Philippine disinformation landscape evolved since 2016? How different was the 2022 presidential election from previous electoral cycles? And what lessons can we learn from electoral triumphs and defeats often associated with disinformation? This report goes to the heart of these questio
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ns. Our aim is to understand the evolving character of disinformation—the tactics used, actors involved, the wider context in which disinformation unfolds, and the responses of the government, tech platforms, and civil society to these trends. In doing so, we hope to generate actionable insights on impactful responses to disinformation, with a view of preparing for the 2025 midterm election." (Introduction)
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"The purpose of this report is to gain a better understanding of the pertinent dynamics and to bolster the design of programming to support the information ecosystem around elections. In aid of this, UNDP sought information through a number of channels, in a review of the relevant literature, a seri
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es of regional consultations, expert meetings and a survey [...] The various sources all conclude there remains no single panacea to the ills that information pollution brings upon elections. Rather, there is a variety of information pollution programming around elections, each with its own benefits and deficiencies. In order to support the design of a holistic information integrity strategy, this report suggests that programmes seek to address one or more of the following three concerns (1) prevention—to address the supply side of information pollution by preventing or deterring the creation of information pollution, (2) resilience—building public resilience to information pollution limiting the ability of users to be influenced or co-opted by information pollution and (3) countering—identifying and attempting to counter information pollution." (Summary, page 8-9)
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"The nature of elections has been transformed by the rise of digital technologies in the last few years, in large part due to the rise of social media platforms and their impact on election campaigning, dissemination of informationand opinion formation. Furthermore, digital technologies have been em
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ployed in the administration of elections, and are being adopted by electoral management bodies. This article seeks to understand these transformations in light of ongoing debates regarding the regulation of elections and digital technologies by positing an approach focused on international human rights frameworks." (Abstract)
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"On average in the 16 countries surveyed, 56% of internet users frequently use social media to stay informed about current events, far ahead of television (44%). However, it is worth noting that differences exist among population groups: television is the primary source in the most developed countri
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es (55% compared to 37% for social media), while it lags significantly in countries with high (42% vs 63%) or medium/low levels of Human Development Index (HDI) (37% vs 68%) [...] The significance of social media as a source of information, especially during election campaigns, is even more crucial given that citizens believe disinformation is highly prevalent there. Across all 16 countries, 68% of internet users told us that social media is the place where disinformation is most widespread, far ahead of groups on online messaging apps (38%) and media websites/apps (20%). This sentiment is overwhelmingly prevalent in all countries, age groups, social backgrounds, and political preferences. This is even more important and citizens feel that the issue of disinformation is a real threat: 85% express concern about the impact and influence of disinformation on their fellow citizens." (Analysis of key results)
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"This paper offers some insights into Twitter as a political field, based on Bourdieu’s field theory. Networked publics, as agents of this field, are competing overpower by performing networked practices. To investigate this field, we focused on two networked practices: networked framing and narra
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ting. Persian Twitter in 2017 presidential election provides a good context to analyze how such a field is constituted. Combining a social-network analytic approach with discursive and textual interpretations, we analyzed a corpus of 2,596,284 tweets. We identified three main networked publics in the retweet network: reformists, conservatives, and diaspora users. Having identified the most influential users in each community based on PageRank metric, we thoroughly investigated all of their tweets. The results show that ordinary users constituted the major population of conservative and diaspora publics. The reformist community included mostly journalists and to a lesser extent media. Findings also confirm that all networked publics used the same strategies to gain more power in the field. They produced quite the same frames and narratives to compete with each other. Moreover, the battle was more about the routine and electoral debates, not the legitimacy or entity of regime. Hence, none of the networked publics challenged the hegemonic discourse in Iran significantly." (Abstract)
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"Patterns of news consumption are changing drastically. Citizens increasingly rely on social media such as Facebook to read and share political news. With the power of these platforms to expose citizens to political information, the implications for democracy are profound, making understanding what
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is shared duringelections a priority on the research agenda. Nevertheless, to the best of our knowledge, no study has yet explicitly explored how elections transform news sharing behaviour on Facebook. This study begins to remedy this by (a) investigating changes in news coverage and news sharing behaviour on Facebook by comparing election and routine periods, and by (b) addressing the ‘news gap’ between preferences of journalists and news consumers on social media. Employing a novel data set of news articles (N = 83,054) in Mexico, findings show that during periods of heightened political activity, both the publication and dissemination of political news increases, the gap between the news choices of journalists and consumers narrows, and that news sharing resembles a zero-sum game, with increased political news sharing leading to a decrease in the sharing of other news." (Abstract)
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"[This publication] outlines how organised disinformation campaigns or Information Operations have become the latest variable to impact the quality of elections in the kingdom [...] Drawn from past evidence, the report identifies four forms of state-sponsored disinformation campaigns that are likely
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to impact the quality of the 2023 elections. First, the creation and dissemination of one-sided pro-establishment campaigns. Second, the online harassment of those who hold alternative political views. Third, the spread of disinformation to distort the election process. Fourth, the use of disinformation to polarise and divide society. Together these state-sponsored actions stand to decrease electoral integrity and shape the outcome of the 2023 general election. To address the impact of state-sponsored disinformation and other forms of disinformation, this report recommends the following multi-stakeholder action: call for a cease to Information Operations; identify, monitor and call out agencies and actors who engage in and endorse disinformation; review the country’s regulatory framework to ensure that its provisions are on par with international standards and support electoral integrity; and improve fact-checking mechanisms and provide digital literary to Thai people." (Executive summary)
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