Media Manipulation Research Articles

MEDIA-POLITICAL DISCOURSE FROM A TEXTOLOGICAL VIEWPOINT

There are different research methods, techniques and strategies that are used to study the text. One of such methods is the method of textual analysis, a variety of study approaches used to analyze and comprehend a piece of writing. Understanding media-political texts and avoiding manipulation and information bias requires not only linguistic and extra-linguistic competence, but also awareness of different strategies. In the present paper, we are aimed to provide an overview of textual analysis as a research tool for studying incidents of manipulation in media news broadcasts from a textological perspective.

Intermedial Reflections on Analogue Photography and Digital Visuality in Moxyland

This article re-reads Lauren Beukes’s debut novel Moxyland (2008) through an intermedial lens, focusing on the text’s multiple “nested” references to images, as well as techniques of “braiding” where visual effects are woven into the prose itself. The ubiquitous presence of photography in the novel suggests a pervasive thematic and stylistic visuality, which at times mimics ways of seeing through a camera lens. A key structuring binary in the novel concerns the opposition between two fundamentally different forms of image technologies, namely classical analogue photography and digital imagery. These two different visual modes are keyed to two of the main characters, but are also freighted with aesthetic, ethical, and political consequences. Photographs have classically authenticated the existence of the real world in front of the lens, but in a digital world, the direct connection between image and reality is increasingly tenuous, arbitrary and random, opening up the spectre of totalitarian information control, fake news, and media manipulation, a world in which citizens no longer have any access to truth and pictures no longer tell us what really has happened. Beukes’s novel, read through this opposition between analogue photography and digital visuality, is a cautionary tale about a future of images and digital technology, and of the consequences that these shifts in visual media may have on society.

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Transmission Mysteries: Art and Technophilia

Brace yourself! Why managers should adopt a synthetic media incident response playbook in an age of falsity and synthetic media

Synthetic media presents looming threats to managers in a business setting. To address this issue, we first offer a short overview of the evolution of media manipulation to contextualize the new era of synthetic media. Then, we present the problems associated with synthetic media via veridicality and heuristics to illustrate how consumers have little choice but to believe what they see, read, and hear online. We outline the most likely and impactful types of synthetic media threats and attacks and present a synthetic media incident response playbook. Our aim is to inform managers about six specific phases so they can prepare, assess, detect, analyze, and recover from synthetic media incidents and coordinate their lessons learned.

Political and Psychological Component of Media Literacy vs Media Manipulation of Public Consciousness

The purpose of the article is to study the political and psychological component of media literacy in Ukrainian society, the most common methods of manipulating the media public consciousness and the correlation of these phenomena with possible means of counteracting such influence. The follo-wing tasks are solved in the article: substantiated political component of media literacy; selected micro-, meso- and macro-level use of means of manipulation depending on the scale and methods of influence of the media on public consciousness; proposed ways to counteract the negative effects of manipulative mechanisms of certain levels, in particular: comparison of the content of materials from different information sources, self-verification of facts broadcast by journalists and common in society, adjusting the pace of information consumption, discussing the most pressing issues of the media agenda with the immediate environment, reliance on media literacy, logic, common sense, sense of proportion, etc. Statistical, comparative and monitoring methods were used in the study of empirical material, systemic and functional methodological approaches.

THE MORPHO-SYNTACTIC ASPECT OF MEDIA POLITICAL DISCOURSE

Manipulation through different media platforms can immediately span practically every element of human life since it attracts, maintains and processes human attention very quickly. This unparalleled technical potential for propaganda and manipulation on social networks can be realized through different language means that may be utilized to influence others. In this paper, our main task will be to find out how manipulation in media is realized through the morpho-syntactic properties of language.

`The handsome astronomer and the yelling lady': representing scientists and expertise in ‘Don't look up’

The film ‘Don't look up’ engages a woman science advisor, historically a very male-dominated role. Because the character of woman scientist Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) cannot be easily transformed into a commodity, she is side-lined as a scientific voice as she attempts to warn Earth of the coming apocalypse. For marginalised scientists, their value depends on how their identity markers are used. ‘Don't look up’ is a satire of audience apathy, corporate greed, and media manipulation but still offers a very nihilistic vision of the impact of scientists and their expertise.

Isolation, Screening and Production of Fungal Laccases

Abstract: Laccase (E.C. 1.10.3.2) are enzyme belonging to the group of blue multi-copper oxidases. Laccases catalyze the oxidation of variety of phenolic compounds, diamines and aromatic amines. Fungal isolate producing laccase was screened on Potato Dextrose Agar medium enriched with 0.02% guaiacol from soil as well as decaying wood samples collected from farm/forest site. Confirmation of laccase production was done by Bavendam test which is a plate assay technique using 3mM guaiacol. The isolate was identified and found to belong genera Aspergillus and was tested for producing laccase enzyme. An attempt was made to isolate, screening and production of laccase enzyme produced from Aspergillus niger. Isolate giving best result was processed further for production of laccase using Submerged fermentation. Guaiacol and sodium citrate buffer were used to assay laccase production. Characterization of fungal isolate was done by morphological analysis. This study showed that enzyme production can be increased by media manipulation in the fungal cultures. Optimization of the media condition can maximize the desired enzyme production. Application or Dye decolorization assay was been performed using 0.1ml crystal violet solution, where dye decolorization efficiency showed the ability of laccase to decolorize dyes. It is present in Ascomycetes, Deuteromycetes and Basidiomycetes and abundant in lignin degrading white / brown rot fungi. In the recent years, these enzymes have gained application in the field of textile, pulp and paper and food industries. Recently, it is also used in the design of biosensors, biofuel cells as a medical diagnostics tool and bioremediation agent to clean up herbicides, pesticides and certain explosive in soil. Laccases have received attention of researchers in the last few decades due to their ability to oxidize both phenolic and non phenolic lignin related compound as well as highly recalcitrant environmental pollutants.

Russian Topic on BBC and Media Manipulations

Russian Topic on BBC and Media Manipulations

Media Manipulation in Modern American and British Press

Media Manipulation in Modern American and British Press

Russian Topic on Radio France Internationale and Media Manipulations

Russian Topic on Radio France Internationale and Media Manipulations

Characterizing Online Engagement with Disinformation and Conspiracies in the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election

Identifying and characterizing disinformation in political discourse on social media is critical to ensure the integrity of elections and democratic processes around the world. Persistent manipulation of social media has resulted in increased concerns regarding the 2020 U.S. Presidential Election, due to its potential to influence individual opinions and social dynamics. In this work, we focus on the identification of distorted facts, in the form of unreliable and conspiratorial narratives in election-related tweets, to characterize discourse manipulation prior to the election. We apply a detection model to separate factual from unreliable (or conspiratorial) claims analyzing a dataset of 242 million election-related tweets. The identified claims are used to investigate targeted topics of disinformation, and conspiracy groups, most notably the far-right QAnon conspiracy group. Further, we characterize account engagements with unreliable and conspiracy tweets, and with the QAnon conspiracy group, by political leaning and tweet types. Finally, using a regression discontinuity design, we investigate whether Twitter's actions to curb QAnon activity on the platform were effective, and how QAnon accounts adapt to Twitter's restrictions.

Deep learning and synthetic media

Deep learning algorithms are rapidly changing the way in which audiovisual media can be produced. Synthetic audiovisual media generated with deep learning—often subsumed colloquially under the label “deepfakes”—have a number of impressive characteristics; they are increasingly trivial to produce, and can be indistinguishable from real sounds and images recorded with a sensor. Much attention has been dedicated to ethical concerns raised by this technological development. Here, I focus instead on a set of issues related to the notion of synthetic audiovisual media, its place within a broader taxonomy of audiovisual media, and how deep learning techniques differ from more traditional approaches to media synthesis. After reviewing important etiological features of deep learning pipelines for media manipulation and generation, I argue that “deepfakes” and related synthetic media produced with such pipelines do not merely offer incremental improvements over previous methods, but challenge traditional taxonomical distinctions, and pave the way for genuinely novel kinds of audiovisual media.

Independent media under pressure: evidence from Russia

ABSTRACT Existing literature recognizes growing threats to press freedom around the world and documents changes in the tools used to stifle the independent press. However, few studies investigate how independent media respond to state pressure in an autocracy, documenting the impact of tactics that stop short of shuttering alternatives to state media. Do independent outlets re-orient coverage to favor regime interests? Or does repression encourage more negative coverage of the regime instead? To shed light on these questions, we investigate how the abrupt removal of independent outlet TV Rain from Russian television providers influenced its coverage. We find that shortly after providers dropped TV Rain, the tone of its political coverage became more positive and its similarity with state-controlled Channel 1 increased. However, these effects were short-lived. Additional evidence suggests that subscription revenue contributed to the station’s resilience. These findings add to our understanding of media manipulation and authoritarian endurance.

The 2018-19 Gaza Fence clashes: a case study in psychological warfare

ABSTRACT This article examines the violent clashes between Hamas and Israel along the Gaza Fence (30 March 2018–27 December 2019) from a psychological operations (PSYOP) perspective. It shows how Hamas managed, through a skilful combination of mass riots, media manipulation, and quick adaptation to changing circumstances to subvert the strategic priorities of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), wear down Israeli morale, and erode Israel’s sovereignty in its southern region – all this while deterring Israel from launching a large-scale military operation in Gaza. As such, the Gaza Fence clashes provide an example of a PSYOP-based strategy that can be applied to other border conflict zones, such as Morocco, Saudi Arabia, Mexico, and Islamist insurrections.

Creating the right environment for tackling disinformation in the classroom

Teacher’s Social Media Profile as Seen by Participants of Educational Relations A. Adaskina, I. Voronkova .............................................................................................................. Media-Communicative Occupational Guidance Based on the Platform of Online Game N. Anashkina, M. Shmatko, S. Anashkina …………………………………………………………………...….. Importance of Media Literacy for Political Communication in Russia: A Case of Student Community I. Bykov, M. Medvedeva ………………………………………………………………………………………………..… Russian Topic on Euronews and Media Manipulations A. Fedorov ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Media Competence of Modern Students: Problems and Possibilities of Its Formation in the System of Higher Education E. Frolova, O. Rogach ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… A Course in Argumentation in Journalism in the Master’s Curriculum: Using Russian Popular Science Magazines as Case Studies V. Golubev, A. Teplyashina, E. Abramova, I. Ibragimov ……………………………………………………… COVID-19 Pandemic and Lockdown on Education: Proposing an ‘e-Pedagogy on the Go’ System as an Alternative e-Teaching and Learning Platform During and in the Post-Pandemic Era A.M. Ibrahim, S. Uba, A.M. Abubakar ………………………………………………………………………………. Media Crowdsourcing and Media Crowdfunding in the Digital Environment and Media Education Practices T. Kaminskaya, O. Erokhina ……………………………………………………………………………………………. Diasporic Identities and their Representation through Cinema: An Analysis of Diasporic Film through South Asian Cinemas S. Kayal, R. Saha …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Media Manipulation in the Modern French and Swiss Press A. Levitskaya ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………… Media Space as a Regulator of the Global Transformation of Communicative Interaction A. Shuneyko, O. Chibisova ………………………………………………………………………………………………. Analysis of Media Manipulation Influences as a Way to Develop Media Competence of Future Teachers (On COVID-19 Media Texts) M. Tselykh, A. Levitskaya ……………………………………………………………………………………………… Usage of Media Products by Teachers: Pedagogical Potential, Expertise and Implementation Yu. Tyunnikov, M. Maznichenko, I. Kazakov, Y. Yurchenko ……………………………………………… Cherkessk – Moscow – Hollywood – and Moscow Again... I. Dzhendubaev …………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Why the Film In August 1944th (Moment of Truth), Filmed in 1975, Was Not Released On the Screen B. Krishtul ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………

REACHING MATURITY: TEACHING HIGHER EDUCATION STUDENTS POLITICAL SCIENCE IN THE 2020S

Purpose of the research: This article discusses the different aspects to consider when deciding the pedagogical choices by which various political sciences can be taught and learnt. Pedagogy is the educational process a teacher uses to teach a learner a new skill. Pedagogy can be teacher-centred or learner-centred, the latter focussing on students having an active role in the learning process. Research methodology: This critical review was written by conducting several internet searches using clearly relevant keywords. Grey literature, policy documents from numerous state actors, associated democratisation, higher education practitioners and stakeholders, feature extensively in this critical review. Findings: Political science students could be taught using experiential learning-centred pedagogy, to learn how equality, diversity and inclusion affect political processes. A basic understanding of political science concepts e.g., agenda-setting and media manipulation, are crucial in conceptualising the politic of equality, diversity and inclusion. Conclusions: Three factors that have caused a significant increase in political science degree applications: The 2008 election of Barack Obama as US President heralded digital democracy and E-government participation.; the rise to prominence of Greta Thunberg, climate activist with the environmentalist movement Extinction Rebellion; the #BLM social movement, re-ignited by the death of George Floyd.

Process-Driven Modelling of Media Forensic Investigations-Considerations on the Example of DeepFake Detection.

Academic research in media forensics mainly focuses on methods for the detection of the traces or artefacts left by media manipulations in media objects. While the resulting detectors often achieve quite impressive detection performances, when tested under lab conditions, hardly any of those have yet come close to the ultimate benchmark for any forensic method, which would be courtroom readiness. This paper tries first to facilitate the different stakeholder perspectives in this field and then to partly address the apparent gap between the academic research community and the requirements imposed onto forensic practitioners. The intention is to facilitate the mutual understanding of these two classes of stakeholders and assist with first steps intended at closing this gap. To do so, first a concept for modelling media forensic investigation pipelines is derived from established guidelines. Then, the applicability of such modelling is illustrated on the example of a fusion-based media forensic investigation pipeline aimed at the detection of DeepFake videos using five exemplary detectors (hand-crafted, in one case neural network supported) and testing two different fusion operators. At the end of the paper, the benefits of such a planned realisation of AI-based investigation methods are discussed and generalising effects are mapped out.

Cloaked science: the Yan reports

ABSTRACT This paper describes a 2020 disinformation campaign promoting the unsubstantiated claim that the novel coronavirus is the product of a Chinese bioweapons program. Exploiting a vulnerability in open-access scientific publishing, the campaign was based on papers posted to an online preprint repository designed to accelerate the diffusion of scientific knowledge. This provided the campaign with an air of scientific legitimacy, helped it reach millions of Americans, and muddied public discourse over the origins of SARS-CoV-2. This case study offers insights into the tactics and practices of media manipulation, the contested nature of modern epistemic systems, the interplay of technical and social systems, and the vulnerability of open systems to manipulation.

Deepfake detection in digital media forensics

With the development of technology and ease of creation of fake content, the manipulation of media is carried out on a large scale in recent times. The rise of AI altered videos or Deepfake media has posed a great threat to media integrity and is being produced and spread widely across social media platforms, the detection of which is seen to be a major challenge. In this paper, an approach for Deepfake detection has been provided. ResNext, a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) algorithm and Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) is used as an approach to detect the Deepfake videos. The approach and its steps are discussed in this paper. The accuracy obtained for the developed Deep-Learning (DL) model over the Celeb-Df dataset is 91%.