Health Discourse Research Initiative

MEAG partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to conduct and promote research about mis/disinformation in global health. The main goal of the project is to achieve an improved knowledge of the range, dynamics and impact of mis/disinformation in global health, while also facilitating the transfer of knowledge, methods, and skills from cutting-edge research on digital media ecosystems into the field of global health. MEAG worked with a network of academics and research groups to design and conduct research relevant to the project's goals.

PartnersPublicationsPodcast

Research groups

MEAG partnered with researchers at several academic institutions to facilitate the production of research on mis/disinformation through funding, data, and collaboration.

Media Ecosystems Analysis Group

The MEAG team has provided support to our partners as they developed their research ideas, tested new methodologies to identify news influencers and explored new topics using the Media Cloud set of tools.

University of Massachusetts Amherst

The team led by Jonathan Corpus Ong, Associate Professor of Global Digital Media, conducted research on social media influencers in three countries: Indonesia, Turkey, and the Philippines.

Università di Urbino Carlo Bo

The team lead by Professor Fabio Giglietto worked to identify coordinated link-sharing networks on Facebook. The research used the CooRnet package on CrowdTangle data, and focused on health information in Nigeria and India.

Boston University

Gianluca Stringhini and his team have been researching the use of manipulated imagery to spread health misinformation, applying perceptual hashing techniques to automatically identify similar images on social media and using Hawkes processes to highlight influential communities making these images viral.

Binghamton University

Jeremy Blackburn’s team has explored the vulnerabilities of open scientific discourse and employed computer science methods to identify and describe sharing patterns of scientific pre-prints across social media spaces.

Shorenstein Center, Harvard University

Our partners at the Shorenstein Center have expanded their collection of case studies focused on medical disinformation, studied the relationship between vaccine hesitancy and infertility arguments, and researched some of the missing dimensions of current research on mis/disinformation.

Publications

Fabio Giglietto, University of Urbino Carlo Bo; Samuel Olaniran University of the Witwatersrand; Roberto Mincigrucci University of Perugia

Widespread low-quality news sources, ethnic and religious divisions: an analysis of the drivers propelling coordinated circulation of problematic health information in Nigeria

Mapping and studying misinformation networks via coordinated social media in Nigeria

Fabio Giglietto, University of Urbino; Samuel Olaniran, University of the Witwatersrand; Roberto Mincigrucci, University of Urbino; Giada Marino, University of Sassari; Serena Mottola, University of Urbino; Massimo Terenzi, University of Urbino

Blowing on the fire: An analysis of low quality and hyper partisan news sources circulated by coordinated link sharing networks in Nigeria

Using Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior to analyze the spread of problematic health-related content on Nigerian Facebook and Instagram

Fabio Giglietto, University of Urbino; Piyush Ghasiya, Tokyo Institute of Technology; Kazutoshi Sasahara, Tokyo Institute of Technology; Sawood Anwar, University of Urbino; Roberto Mincigrucci, University of Urbino

Between Localism and Politics: mapping Coordinated Networks that Circulate Problematic Health Content in India

Using Coordinated Link Sharing Behavior to study the coordinated spread of health-related problematic content in India

S. B. Yudhoatmojo, E. De Cristofaro, J. Blackburn (Binghamton University)

Understanding the Use of e-Prints on Reddit and 4chan

How are scientific pre-prints being used to drive conversations on social media?

J. Nielsen (Shorenstein Center)

Ebola and the US Border: Spreading virus rumors to build the wall

Using rumors about infectious diseases for political gain

J. Nielsen (Shorenstein Center)

Cord Blood and Medical Misinformation

The big business of unproven stem cell treatments

Viral Networks Podcast

Viral Networks is a podcast examining online mis- and disinformation from every angle with the help of the academics who study it.

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MEAG is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization incorporated in Massachusetts, USA.