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Strategies that Sell: Revealing Deceptive and Misleading Practices in Digital Media

"Strategies That Sell: Revealing Deceptive and Misleading Practices in Digital Media"

Presented by Victoria Rubin, Yimin Chen, Sarah Cornwell, Toluwase Asubiaro and Chris Brogly

Wednesday, March 7, 2018 - FNB 4070
12:00 p.m. - 1:00 p.m.

Abstract: In this team-talk FIMS LiT.RL lab researchers will discuss manipulative components of digital news, from seemingly harmless to potentially misleading and intentionally deceptive. Five sets of questions drive their collaborative research and development:

• What makes clickbait recognizable? Do people agree on what it is?
• What do native ads rely on? Are they sufficiently labeled as sponsored content?
• Does satire ever misfire? How can an algorithm tell a satirical fake news?
• What are the characteristics of false news (on 2016-2017 U.S. politics)?
• How can automation help us to verify news? What is the role of critical media literacy in combatting the spread of misinformation and viral deception in digital media?

This talk will share results of several inter-connected studies involving participant interviews, q-sorts, content analysis, text analytics with natural language processing, and machine learning. A newly developed LiT.RL News Verification browser will be demoed, as a proof of concept and work-in-progress.

Everyone is welcome to attend.