CSE - Digital Technologies, Media, Information Warfare and Propaganda
Dr. Emma L. Briant is a leading researcher on propaganda and information warfare who is undertaking several projects involving analysis of media, propaganda and political communication. She is seeking students with a range of skills and experience to assist in research related to data, media, persuasive media, manipulation, propaganda; the impact of emerging technologies for influence in the context of security and politics; and how to address these problems. Students would be assisting in the analysis of a corpus of data, coding text and analyzing language and/or tracking prominent themes and narratives in order to help identify patterns and trends. One project is for example exploring framing and agenda-setting narratives in relation to propaganda and technology scandals. Bring your enthusiasm and an interest in studying how media, political communication and technologies impact our world!
Name of research group, project, or lab
Lucy Institute for Data and Society
Why join this research group or lab?
Often the way problems are framed within public debates can influence how they are seen by publics and policymakers. The research aims to enhance our understanding about the role of the media, academic discourses and policy debates in society, including the way propaganda, disinformation and technologies are changing, how they are understood as problems, and addressed with policy or other responses, in order to understand how to develop stronger solutions for the future.
Dr. Briant is a Visiting Associate Profession in the Lucy Family Institute, which works on projects that ethically address society’s vexing problems using data science and artificial intelligence (AI). Dr. Briant uses both qualitative and quantitative research methodologies to examine the impacts of evolving contemporary influence operations, propaganda and manipulation online. She has multiple projects ongoing and students will be matched to a suitable project based on their skills, interests and experience. Dr. Briant’s research, testimony and solutions on media, technology, and the rapid evolution of surveillant propaganda and its implications for democracy, security and human rights have informed civil society organizations, government agencies, industry, the UN, US Congress, UK Parliament, Canadian Parliament and European Parliament among others.
Dr. Briant has three existing books, Bad News for Refugees, (Pluto Press, with Philo and Donald, 2013), Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change (Manchester University Press, 2015), and the Routledge Handbook on the Influence Industry (Routledge, co-edited with Vian Bakir, 2024) and is presently working on a fourth Propaganda Machine. She was central in revealing the Cambridge Analytica-Facebook scandal in 2018 — this research formed the basis for important evidence submitted to the U.K. Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Committee inquiry into “fake news” and the Senate Judiciary Committee in 2018 among other international public inquiries. You can learn more about Dr. Briant and her past research on her website here: https://emma-briant.co.uk/