• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.21 no.2
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• pp.652-666
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• 2021

This study explores diffusion of information on Covid-19 relating to China on You Tube. For this, information on Covid-19 relating to China was divided into factual information and disinformation, with factual information being categorized into positive and negative information. According to network analysis, there are lots of negative information and disinformation. On the contrary positive information is rare. There are lots of videos about rumor on the leak of Wuhan institute among disinformation. Rumor on the manipulation of genes has the highest average value of view count and betweenness centrality. Main stream youtube channel has only role of messenger which delivers messages as it is instead of fact-checking on disinformation. The fact which there are much more negative information or disinformation among videos about Covid-19 relating with China shows that Youtube users skewed toward negative information and disinformation than positive ones. In summary, disinformation on youtube brings spreadable effect by making user watch similar contents.

• Journal of Contemporary Eastern Asia
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• v.18 no.2
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• pp.68-89
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• 2019

When comparing media freedom in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand, so-called "fake news" appears as threats to a deliberative (online) public sphere in these three diverse contexts. However, "racist propaganda", "information operations" and "negative campaigning" might be more accurate terms that explain these forms of systematic manipulative political communication. The three cases show forms of disinformation in under-researched contexts and thereby expand the often Western focused discourses on hate speech and fake news. Additionally, the analysis shows that harmful disinformation disseminated online originates from differing contextual trajectories and is not an "online phenomenon". Drawing on an analysis of connotative context factors, this explorative comparative study enables an understanding of different forms of harmful disinformation in Malaysia, Myanmar, and Thailand. The connotative context factors were inductively inferred from 32 expert interviews providing explanations for the formation of political communication (control) mechanisms.

• Journal of the Korean Society for Library and Information Science
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• v.53 no.3
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• pp.291-315
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• 2019

The aim of the present study was to compare the research trends on disinformation between Korean and abroad. To achieve this objective, a total of 283 author-assigned English keywords in 104 Korean papers and 3,551 author-assigned English keywords in 861 abroad papers were collected from the whole research fields and the publication periods. The collected data were analyzed using NetMiner V.4 to discover their 'degree centrality' and 'betweenness centrality'of the keyword network. The result are as follows. First, the major research topics of disinformation in Korea were drawn such as 'Freedom of Expression', 'Fact Check', 'Regulation', 'Media Literacy', and 'Information Literacy' in order; whereas, in abroad were shown like 'Social Media', 'Post Truth', 'Propaganda', 'Information Literacy', and 'Journalism' in order. Second, in terms of the influence of research topics related to disinformation, in Korea were identified such as 'Fact Check', 'Freedom of Expression', and 'Hoax' in order; whereas, in abroad were shown such as 'Social Media' and 'Detection' in order. Finally, in an aspect of intervention of research topics related to disinformation, in Korea were 'Fact Check', 'Polarization', 'Freedom of Expression', and 'Commercial'; whereas, in abroad were 'Social Media', 'Detection', and 'Machine Learning' in order.

• Asian Journal for Public Opinion Research
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• v.8 no.2
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• pp.67-104
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• 2020

Fake news and disinformation provoked heated arguments during Taiwan's 2018 local election. Most significantly, concerns grew that Beijing was attempting to sway the island's politics armed with a new "Russian-style influence campaign" weapon (Horton, 2018). To investigate the speculated effects of the "onslaught of misinformation," an online survey with 1068 randomly selected voters was conducted immediately after the election. Findings confirmed that false news affected Taiwanese voters' judgment of the news and their voting decisions. More than 50% of the voters cast their votes without knowing the correct campaign news. In particular, politically neutral voters, who were the least able to discern fake news, tended to vote for the China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT) candidates. Demographic analysis further revealed that female voters tended to be more likely to believe fake news during the election period compared to male voters. Younger or lower-income voters had the lowest levels of discernment of fake news. Further analyses and the implications of these findings for international societies are deliberated in the conclusion.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.2
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• pp.226-239
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• 2020

The study seeks to present ways to form and express political opinions while monitoring, regulating and critically accepting the production and distribution of false information and platforms, which are spread channels, through the participation of citizens. First, it logically identified the unfairness of legal regulations on false information. In other words, it is often practically impossible to judge whether false information is false or not, and even false information can sometimes fall within the category of freedom of expression protection. It also revealed that voluntary regulation by platform operators was limited. As an alternative, it was theoretically clear whether civil society should participate in the maintenance and development of democratic public debate sites and create social discourse. The specific method is to find and classify false information and share it with citizens to raise awareness. Second, it forms an autonomous cooperative system with platform operators and others. Third, develop critical media capacity of citizens. Fourth, it responds to producers and platform operators of false information while engaging in community activities as a direct practitioner.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.10 no.1
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• pp.59-72
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• 2022

This text discusses elements and characteristics of contemporary informational reality, that is, the ways of producing, circulating, organizing, using, and appropriating information in the current context. Initially, seven terms and concepts used to describe this reality are discussed: fake news, false testimonials, hate speech, scientific negationism, disinformation, post-truth, and infodemic. Next, an attempt is made to present a framework for such phenomena as an object of study in information science. Therefore, this scenario is characterized based on the three main models of information science study: physical, cognitive, and social. The contribution of each of them to the study of contemporary informational reality is analyzed, identifying aspects such as the bubble effect, clickbaits, confirmation bias, cults of amateurism, and post-truth culture. Finally, it presents the discussion of a possible veritistic turn in the field, in order to think about elements not covered so far by information science in its task and challenge of producing adequate understanding and diagnoses of current phenomena. In conclusion, it is argued that only accurate and comprehensive diagnoses of such phenomena will allow information science to develop services and systems capable of combating their harmful effects.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.22 no.8
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• pp.14-32
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• 2022

This study aims to examine the perception of false information and deepfakes according to the experience of being exposed to false information and deepfake images for YouTube content users. The study used the data from 'YouTube Use and False Information Exposure Experience' conducted by the Korea Press Foundation in 2018. For the statistical analysis, correspondent analysis was employed. The main results followed as: First, it was found that men who have been exposed to false information are most seriously aware of the problems caused by false information on YouTube. Second, regarding the need for regulation on deepfake images, women who have experienced exposure to deepfake images tended to agree, and women had a stronger awareness of the need for regulation due to damage to deepfake images than men. While YouTube users generally agree that regulation is necessary, it is required to educate YouTube users about the types of disinformation and deepfakes. In particular, it is considered to be desirable to create an environment for the self-regulation of the producers and distributors.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.5-35
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• 2021

Where government communication in the early 20^th century fell under the umbrella term, "propaganda," the post-WWII era saw a paradigm fracture into public affairs for domestic audiences, public diplomacy for foreign audiences, and psychological operations for hostile audiences. The continued diffusion of the Internet, however, has blurred such distinctions, mending this fractured paradigm. Based on in-depth interviews, this study typologizes government communication to contextualize how various tactics functions within the 21^st century digital media ecology, through an "Information Intervention" taxonomy. In an age where state-sponsored disinformation and computational propaganda are tantamount threats, this paper elucidates the field's fundamental concepts by articulating who communicates with what audience, in what manner, with what intent, and with what desired outcomes.

• Journal of Information Science Theory and Practice
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• v.8 no.3
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• pp.77-90
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• 2020

This study analyzes N=181 social media rumors from Bangladesh to find out the most popular themes, sources, and aims. The result shows that social media rumors have seven popular themes: political, health & education, crime & human rights, religious, religiopolitical, entertainment, and other. Also, online media and mainstream media are the two main sources of social media rumors, along with three tentative aims: positive, negative, and unknown. A few major findings of this research are: Political rumors dominate social media, but its percentage is decreasing, while religion-related rumors are increasing; most of the social media rumors are negative and emerge from online media, and social media itself is the dominant online source of social media rumors; and, most of the health-related rumors are negative and surge during a crisis period, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper identifies some of its limitations with the data collection period, data source, and data analysis. Providing a few research directions, this study also elucidates the contributions of its results in academia and policymaking.

• Journal of Public Diplomacy
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• v.1 no.1
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• pp.80-110
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• 2021

Public diplomacy (PD) scholars tend to consider two main principals: the country or agent that conducts PD (Actor A), and target groups in the host country in which PD is conducted (Actor B). The field currently lacks theories of how communications between Actors A and B can be disrupted by a third party, such as a group of motivated trolls, an organised advocacy group, or a hostile country and its agents. The purpose of this article is to outline some theoretical considerations for how the PD research field might move away from a two-actor model of PD to one in which disruption is part of the discussion. The case study explores the activities of an interest group called Media Watchdogs of Sweden (MEWAS). MEWAS was a group of around 200 members who met in a hidden Facebook group to coordinate off-platform activities aimed at influencing perceptions of how the Swedish government handled the COVID-19 pandemic in the eyes of foreign governments, researchers, decision-makers, and media. Much critical news coverage in the international press has been linked to this group. Unpacking some of MEWAS' activities, which can be considered a quite typical mixture of legitimate and illegitimate communication techniques used by activist groups, can help to shed light on some difficult questions regarding disruption in PD.