Numbers have unique power in public discourse but have often been used in misleading ways. There is a long history of spurious numerical claims about climate change, public health, and immigration. Poor objective and subjective numeracy also mean many people struggle to judge statistics. Using data from our in-depth, longitudinal qualitative fieldwork, in our new article we explore how people gauge the trustworthiness of numerical dis- and misinformation on personal messaging platforms.

Our new public report from the Everyday Misinformation Project. Based on a nationally-representative survey of 2,000 people, the findings cast serious doubt on whether these tags are currently effective as misinformation warnings. Meta can do better.

In this guest post, Mohamed Zayani (Georgetown University) and Joe F. Khalil (Northwestern University) explain the argument of their new book, out now in my series with Oxford University Press.

Most research into online misinformation has investigated its direct effects—the impact it may have on citizens’ beliefs and behaviour. Much less attention has been paid to how citizens themselves make sense of misinformation as a broader social problem, even though such attitudes are likely to shape how people respond to anti-misinformation interventions.

In this article we integrated some select theories of narrative, identity, cultural capital, and social distinction to examine how people construct the problem of misinformation and their orientation to it.

Hot off the press… the latest publication from the Everyday Misinformation Project, out now in Media, Culture & Society.

We have a new opening at Loughborough for a postdoc on the Everyday Misinformation Project.

In this guest post, the latest in a series by Oxford Studies in Digital Politics authors, William H. Dutton explains the big idea underlying his new book.