Information School News

Media: How TikTok got political By Penny CS Andrews   Our PhD Researcher in information, media and communication, Penny CS Andrews, has written a piece for The Conversation.  They discuss how Tik Tok has become a platform for political messages.  You can read their article here.

Media: Dr Paul Reilly on the BBC talking about #fakenews  During the pandemic, our Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has seen a lot of interest in his specialism of fake news in social media. Dr Reilly was featured on the BBC this week discussing Twitter's decision to classify some of Donald Trump's Tweets as 'unsubstantiated'. You can read more about his appearances on his blog here. If you would like to speak to any of our academic staff about their research areas please contact our Marketing Officer.

This week saw a poster session for the Faculty of Social Sciences BA Digital Media and Society students, a cross-department programme to which the Information School contributes two core modules. The posters are the result of a 2 week 'group challenge' in which students had to develop a proposal for a digital media campaign aimed at raising awareness about how personal data are gathered from online sources to be analysed and used by different people for different purposes. Well done to all the students involved, and particularly the winners of the Best Poster award, seen below! Group 10, winners of the Best Poster award: Shuyue Deng, Yoonho Jeong, Su Hyun Kim, Luyi Ma and Jianuo Wang Group 4, runners up:  Shu Ki Cheung, Qinghanyue Li, Yijie Lin, Eun Phil Lee, Huiting Zhao and Shafei Zhuang

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly's written submission to the Fake News Enquiry , entitled ‘Fake news, mis-and disinformation in Northern Ireland,’ has been published by the UK Government Department for Digital, Culture Media and Sport Committee . In the submission, Dr Reilly draws on his 17 years of research into digital media and conflict transformation in Northern Ireland to discuss how social media has been used to share mis- and disinformation during contentious episodes, such as the union flag protests and the Ardoyne parade dispute. The submission can be viewed here .