WEBINAR 1: Misinformation and Disinformation in Elections

21 March 2022 (Monday), 20:00 – 21:30 (Singapore Time)

The impact of misinformation and disinformation from domestic and foreign actors continues to be a concern for countries that are going to the polls in 2022 or are preparing for upcoming elections. These countries include the Philippines and India in 2022, while Indonesia is gearing up for elections in 2024. The usage of misinformation and disinformation strategies such as sock puppets, troll farms and disinformation-for-hire continues to perpetuate in election campaigning. While much research has been focused on such activities in the West, the elections in Asia turn a spotlight on such activities in the region.

Speakers

Taberez Ahmed Neyazi joined the Department as Assistant Professor of New Media and Political Communication in July 2017. Taberez’s research focuses on political communication and public opinion; computational social science; digital, mobile, and social media; communication theory; political Islam; and public policy with a focus on India, Indonesia and South Asia. He is the Director of the project Digital Campaign Asia or DigiCamp, which involves studying digital political campaigns of parties, candidates, and media and how they engage with the public in the diverse political communication environments of Asia.

Klara Esti is currently a senior researcher with educational background in communication studies from Atma Jaya University Yogyakarta. Klara continues to explore various topics, ranging from media and the constitution of public sphere, social mapping, creative economy, to innovation and development policies.

Jonathan Corpus Ong is Associate Professor of Global Digital Media at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst. He has written two books and over twenty journal articles in the areas of media ethics and. digital politics. His research on the shadowy political trolling industries in Southeast Asia uses ethnography to understand the identities and motivations of disinformation producers. His policy engagement with the Philippines’ election commission led to policy change in social media political advertising in the 2019 Philippines Elections. He is currently Research Fellow at the Shorenstein Center of Harvard Kennedy School where he   studies 1) Covid-19 racism and disinformation and 3) the true costs of   misinformation to human rights workers.