Global Disinformation Policy Database
Instructor: Kiril Avramov
Client: Global Disinformation Lab (GDIL) at UT Austin
MGPS Seats: 18
Ideal for: students interested in media, disinformation, dataset construction
Travel: none confirmed
Skills: No special skills required
The Global Disinformation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin (GDIL) is developing a database of global policy responses to misinformation and disinformation. Our project seeks to connect multidisciplinary researchers with the data they need to understand how states are responding to “information disorder.”
Thanks to profound advances in networking and data analysis, all information is now strategic information. The geopolitics of information is a subject that demands serious inquiry and better data to inform that work. States, individuals, and organizations across the world are struggling to adapt to a new status quo. Proposals for reforming, regulating, and reshaping the information environment are such a ubiquitous feature of public discourse that it can be hard to hold them distinct. The global dimensions of this problem introduce further difficulties for researchers and policymakers interested in comparative analysis. The Global Disinformation Policy Database will address these problems by introducing a framework for rendering new policies, legislation, and other changes to the status quo comparable and measurable along key axes of difference.
Not dissimilar to the Global Terrorism Database or a global rating and ranking such as the Freedom in the World Index, this project will comprehensively catalog (by country) responses to disinformation and misinformation, information operations capabilities, and proposed legislation and emerging conversations. Useful exploratory analysis and interactive web apps could be built on top of such a database. By working with outside scholars and policymakers, including partners
inside social media companies, we can incorporate end-user feedback in order to maximize the value of the database. Collecting information about policy responses to disinformation and misinformation would be a valuable enough contribution. However, a resource like the one we have in mind also represents an opportunity to shape the conversation around global trends in disinformation and misinformation policy. The value to students is threefold: practical research experience contributing to a vital resource for policymakers and scholars, instruction from leading experts in the field, and the opportunity to help define the terms of one of the most important policy issues facing the world today.
The first semester of the PRP will focus on learning best practices in dataset construction, comparative research, and codebook design, along with the foundations of how policymakers have understood and reacted to disinformation and misinformation. In the second semester, student teams of coders will populate the database itself and design its interface, and draft an academic article aimed at a peer-reviewed journal to discuss the findings and analysis of the data they have collected.