Information School News

Faced with an ‘infodemic’ of fake news about Covid-19, most people are checking their facts – but we mustn’t be complacent Dr Paul Reilly Photo by  Hello I'm Nik 🎞  on  Unsplash As fake news spreads about Covid-19, early evidence suggest that most people are responding sensibly, and double-checking the information they receive. However, given trust in journalism remains low, it remains vital, argues Paul Reilly, that we all act responsibility, and verify what we read and watch. Read Dr Reilly's article in the Democratic Audit here.

Long live local journalism: the 'first responders' in the fight against COVID-19 fake news  Dr Paul Reilly There has been much ‘fake news’ about COVID-19 over the past month. This has included disinformation about the virus being ‘manufactured’ in the US, as well as false claims that drinking methanol and bleach cures its victims. While there is certainly some evidence to suggest that social media are turbocharging the sharing of this false information amongst citizens across the globe, politicians have also contributed to misinformation about the pandemic through their media appearances. Most notably, President Donald Trump has repeatedly misled US citizens about the availability of vaccines and the effectiveness of new treatments in his daily televised news briefings. Closer to home, Cabinet Ministers have also made a number of false or misleading statements to the press. In the past week, Michael Gove erroneously claimed that efforts to ramp up COVID-19 testing ...

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has had an article co-authored with Bournemouth University colleagues Anastasia Veneti and Darren Lilleker published in Journalism . The article entitled ‘Photographing the Battlefield: the role of ideology in photojournalist practices during the anti-austerity protests in Greece’ can be accessed here .

Senior Lecturer Dr Paul Reilly has published a piece for Democratic Audit UK on the role of social media in the Kingsmill bread video row, which culminated in the resignation of Sinn Fein MP Barry McElduff last week. Dr Reilly argues that this incident illustrates how hybrid media logics operate in Northern Ireland, with professional journalists increasingly using social media such as Twitter not only to source stories, but also to hold politicians to account for what they post online. The post can be found here

Doctoral candidate Wasim Ahmed , in collaboration with Chrysi Dagoula from the Journalism Department hosted an event at the Information School on Tuesday the 30th of May on the theoretical and practical aspects of social media research. The event was attended by delegates from across the UK ranging from PhD students, post-doctoral researchers as well as a number of senior academics. Dr Andrew Cox congratulates co-organiser Wasim Ahmed for successfully running the event  Dr Andrew Cox , Senior Lecturer, introduced the event and highlighted its interdisciplinary nature and thanked the Faculty for funding the event. The event also featured a talk by Sally Sanger whose PhD looks at alcohol online support groups. Event organisers would like to thank Xiaomei An for taking pictures of the event throughout the day.