Computational Propaganda
Political Parties, Politicians, and Political Manipulation on Social Media
Edited by Samuel C. Woolley and Philip N. Howard
Author Information
Samuel C. Woolley is Assistant Professor in the School of Journalism at the University of Texas, Austin.
Philip N. Howard is Director and Professor at the Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford.
They are the co-founders of the Computational Propaganda Project. This research endeavour is focused on the study of the manipulation of public opinion via online spaces. The project is based at the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford.
Contributors:
Daniel Arnaudo is a Senior Program Manager at the National Democratic Institute. He is a research Fellow at the University of Washington's Center for Global Studies and the Igrapé Institute of Rio de Janeiro. His research focuses on internet governance, cybersecurity, and information and communication technologies for development (ICT4D). He earned masters degrees in Information Management and International Studies at UW by completing a thesis on Brazil and its Bill of Rights for the internet, the Marco Civil. In the past, he has worked for the Arms Control Association, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, and the Carter Center.
Gillian Bolsover is a former Researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford. She holds a DPhil from OII and a Master's degree in Media and Communications from the London School of Economics. Her current work investigates the use of bots, algorithms and other forms of automated online political opinion manipulation, with a particular focus on China.
Elizabeth Dubois is an Assistant Professor at the University of Ottawa. Her work examines digital media, influence and political engagement. She is a graduate of the Oxford Internet Institute at the University of Oxford where she completed a DPhil (PhD) in Information, Communication and the Social Sciences as well as an MSc in the Social Sciences of the Internet (distinction). She has a BA Hons. Specialization in Communication (summa cum laude) from the University of Ottawa. Elizabeth was a SSHRC Doctoral Fellow, Clarendon Fellow and Killam Fellow (Fulbright Canada).
Robert Gorwa is a DPhil student in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford. His doctoral work looks at the effects of technology on various international relations phenomena, with a focus on the Internet and its implications for international security, diplomacy, and conflict. He is particularly interested in the way that governments and other actors use social media to exert international influence. He holds a BA in International Relations from the University of British Columbia and a MSc from the Oxford Internet Institute, where he focused on the politics, policy, and political economy of social bots.
Douglas Guilbeault is a PhD Researcher at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania and a Research Associate at the Digital Intelligence Lab at the Institute for the Future. He studies social bots in the Network Dynamics Group at Penn. He holds an M.A. in cognitive linguistics from the University of British Columbia and a B.A. in philosophy, rhetoric, and cognitive science from the University of Waterloo. Doug's research is funded through a Joseph-Armand Bombardier, PhD Scholarship from the Social Sciences & Humanities Research Council of Canada.
Philip N. Howard is Director and statutory Professor of Internet Studies at the Oxford Internet Institute and a Senior Fellow at Balliol College at the University of Oxford. He has published eight books and over 120 academic articles and public essays on information technology, international affairs and public life. Howard's books include The Managed Citizen (Cambridge, 2006), the Digital Origins of Dictatorship and Democracy (Oxford, 2010), and most recently, Pax Technica: How the Internet of Things May Set Us Free or Lock Us Up (Yale, 2015).
Fenwick McKelvey is an Assistant Professor in Information and Communication Technology Policy in the Department of Communication at Concordia University. Investigating the machines, bots, artificial intelligence, algorithms, and daemons that make up the Internet's infrastructure, his research takes him from debates at the Canadian Radio and Television Commission to data centres and from Gilles Deleuze to John Dewey. His recent and ongoing studies have focused on the daemons that manage Internet flows and their role in Network Neutrality debates, the new software and social media platforms that mediate political engagement, and the algorithms and AIs that govern the discoverability of online content.
Nicholas Monaco is a Research Associate at Graphika and at the Digital Intelligence Lab at the Institute for the Future where he studies automation, disinformation, and online political communication. He received his Master of Science in Computational Linguistics from the University of Washington and his BA in Linguistics from the University of Wisconsin at Madison. Previously, he worked for Pacific Social Architecting Corporation on research around the political use of social bots. His research interests include Chinese, French and German linguistics, political bots, automation/AI, computational propaganda and foreign affairs. He written about these topics for commentary venues such as Fortune and TechCrunch.
Lisa Maria Neudert is a Researcher on the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute (OII), University of Oxford and a DPhil Student at OII. Selected as a Fulbright Scholar, Lisa-Maria studied Communication Technologies & Diplomacy at the Georgetown University, Washington DC, and holds a B.A. in Communication Science from the Ludwig-Maxmilians-University, Munich. Lisa-Maria has worked in various fields in the (digital) communications sector including radio & broadcast news journalism (ARD), communication consulting (Allianz Singapore) and Marketing (Coca-Cola, BBDO). She has conducted research at SDA Bocconi, Milan, the National University of Singapore and Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich.
Dariya Orlova is a Senior Lecturer and media researcher at the Mohyla School of Journalism at the National University of Kyiv and a former visiting professor at the Center for Russia, East European, and Eurasian Studies at Stanford University. She received her PhD in Mass Communication in 2013 from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and National University of Kyiv-Mohyla Academy with a thesis on "Representation of 'Europe" in the Mediatized Discourse of Ukrainian Political Elites." Her research interests include: political communication, media transformations in post-Soviet countries, journalism culture, media and national identity.
Sergey Sanovich is a Ph.D. student in the Wilf Family Department of Politics at NYU. He studies institutions and policies that enable authoritarian regimes to stay in power. Specifically, he is interested how governments manage potential threats from organized opposition through election fraud as well as formal electoral rules manipulation. At NYU, he conducts research for the Social Media and Political Participation (SMaPP) Lab. At SMaPP he studies tools employed to counter opposition activity in social media. Sergey holds Bachelor in Economics and Masters in Public Policy from Higher School of Economics (Moscow) and Masters in Social Sciences from the University of Chicago.
Samuel Woolley is the Director of the Digital Intelligence Lab at the Institute for the Future, a research associate at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford and a visiting scholar at UC Berkeley's Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS). He is the co-founder and the former Director of Research of the Computational Propaganda Project at the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford. He is a Belfer Fellow at the Anti-Defamation League's Center for Technology and Society research, a research fellow at the TechPolicy Lab at the University of Washington. He is a former fellow at Google Jigsaw, the Institute for the Future, and the Center for Media, Data and Society at Central European University. He researches automation and political communication and has published widely on the subject of computational propaganda. He holds at PhD from the University of Washington.
Mariia Zhdanova is a Researcher for StopFake.org, a Ukrainian fact checking site that looks at how propaganda influences Ukraine and other countries worldwide. She is the Head of Digital at Vogue Ukraine. She has an interest in the verification of information, the raising of media literacy in Ukraine, and the establishment of a clear red line between journalism and propaganda. Previously, Mariia worked as a Communications Manager at the British Council and a Digital Project Manager for a Ukrainian television channel. She holds a Master's degree in sociology from the University of Glasgow.
