DISINFORMATION, LANGUAGE, AND IDENTITY WORKSHOP 2021

Disinformation is the intentional spread of information known to be false. The use of social media as a disinformation dissemination tool has grown in recent years, leading to the identification of disinformation as one of the biggest threats to global democracy (World Economic Forum 2016). Increasingly, a different range of actors contribute to the construction and communication of disinformation, featuring in some key global challenges from COVID-19 to the US elections. As a result, a comprehensive understanding of disinformation requires contributions from numerous fields. This online interdisciplinary workshop focuses on the interplay of language, identity, and disinformation. We hope that exploring synergies between different approaches to disinformation research can help us to answer questions like: How are dominant narratives of disinformation constructed online? How do fake news circulate across different communities online? How can we use quantitative methods to understand the spread of disinformation? How can we use qualitative methods to understand the construction and spread of disinformation narratives across communities?