Recent scandals about the role of social media in key political events in the US, UK and other European countries over the past couple of years have underscored the need to understand the interactions between digital platforms, misleading information and propaganda, and their influence on collective life in democracies. In response to this, the Public Data Lab and First Draft developed a free, open-access guide to help students, journalists and researchers investigate misleading and viral content, memes and trolling practices online. The five chapters of the guide describe a series of research protocols or “recipes” that can be used to trace trolling practices, the ways false viral news and memes circulate online, and the commercial underpinnings of problematic content. Read more here.
Source: First Draft