Papers & Articles
The Disinformation Project’s research is expansive in that it addresses disinformation across major social media platforms covering topics such as political polarization, far-right extremism, hate, racism, xenophobia, conspiracy theories, international interference in elections, and the impact of interference on legacy media formats. Under the leadership of Dr. Al-Rawi, the research teams, whose names are highlighted in bold font below, tackle controversial topics that have the potential to affect the political, the public and private spheres, and our understanding and implications of social interaction across the broad spectrum of communications. For example, Al-Rawi was commissioned by the Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC) to write a report offering an analysis of misinformation during the truckers’ protest. It was used as part of the Commission's final report and exhibit (documentary evidence) documents. Also, members of the research team were also invited by the Canadian House of Commons as expert witnesses on misinformation in 2022. The research team also collaborated with the Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) and UBC’s Global Reporting Centre in writing a report about misinformation campaigns targeting Moroccan journalists.
Peer reviewed papers
- Al-Rawi, A., Blackwell, B., Zemenchik, K., & Lee, K. (2023). Twitter misinformation discourses about vaping: A systematic content analysis. Journal of Medical Internet Research. 1-25.
- Al-Rawi, A. & Prithipaul, D. (2023). The public’s appropriation of multimodal discourses of fake news on social media. The Communication Review. 1-25.
- Stewart, N., Al-Rawi, A., Celestini, C. & Worku, N. (2023). Hate Influencers’ Mediation of Hate on Telegram: “We Declare War Against the Anti-White System”. Social Media + Society, 1-15.
- Holford, Dawn; Fasce, Angelo; Tapper, Katy; Demko, Miso; Lewandowsky, Stephan; Hahn, Ulrike; Abels, Christoph; Al-Rawi, Ahmed; et al. (2023). Science Communication as a Collective Intelligence Endeavour: A Manifesto and Examples for Implementation. Science Communication. 1-15.
- Al-Rawi, A., Stewart, N., Celestini, C., & Worku, N. (2022). Delegitimizing the Legitimate: Dark Social Movements on Telegram. Global Media Journal - Canadian edition.14(1), 28-47.
- Al-Rawi, A., Siddiqi, M., Wenham, C., & Smith, J. The gendered dimensions of the anti-mask and anti-lockdown movement on social media. Humanities and Social Sciences Communications. 9(418), 1-10.
- Al-Rawi, A. & Jamieson, K. (2022). Characterizing the gendered Twitter discussion of Covid-19 hoax. Health Communication. 1-25.
- Al-Rawi, A., Fakia, A. & Grounds, K. (2022). Investigation of Covid-19 misinformation in Arabic on Twitter: Content analysis. JMIR Infodemiology. 2(2), 1-10.
- Lewandowsky, S., Armaos, K., Bruns, H., Schmid, P., Holford, D., Hahn, U., Al-Rawi, A., Sah, S., Cook, J. (2022). When Science Becomes Embroiled in Conflict: Recognizing the Public’s Need for Debate while Combating Conspiracies and Misinformation. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 1-15.
- Al-Rawi, A., Celestini, C., Stewart, N., & Worku, N. (2022). How Google autocomplete algorithms about conspiracy theorists mislead the public? M/C Journal, 25(1).
- Lewandowsky, S., Armaos, K., Bruns, H., Schmid, P., Holford, D., Hahn, U., Al-Rawi, A., Sah, S., Cook, J., Juanchich, M., & Ladyman, J. (2022). COVID-19: Conspiracies and Collateral Damage vs. Constructive Critique. In J. Musolino, P. Hemmer, & J. Sommer (Eds.). The Cognitive Science of Belief (pp. 1-40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2021). Telegraming hate: Far-right themes on the dark social media. Canadian Journal of Communication. 1-40.
- Al-Rawi, A., & Fakida, A. (2021). The methodological challenges of studying fake news. Journalism Practice. 1-25.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2021). Disinformation under a networked authoritarian state: Saudi trolls’ credibility attacks against Jamal Khashoggi. Open Information Science, 5, 140-162.
- Al-Rawi, A., O'Keefe, D., Kane, O., & Bizimana, A. (2021). Twitter’s fake news discourses around climate change and global warming. Frontiers in Communication. 1-25.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2021). Political memes & fake news discourses on Instagram. Media and Communication, 9(10), 276–290.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2021). How did Russian and Iranian trolls’ disinformation towards Canadian issues diverge and converge? Digital War. pp. 1-30.
- Al-Rawi, A., & Rahman, A. (2020). Manufacturing rage: The Russian Internet Research Agency’s political astroturfing on social media. First Monday, 25(9). DOI: https://doi.org/10.5210/fm.v25i9.10801
- Al-Rawi, A. (2020). Kekistanis and the meme war on social media. Journal of Intelligence, Conflict, and Warfare, 3(1), 1-13.
- Al-Rawi, A. & Shukla, V. (2020). Bots as active news promoters: A digital analysis of COVID-19 tweets. Information. 11(461), 1-13. DOI:10.3390/info1110046
- Al-Rawi, A., Groshek, J. & Zhang, L. (2019). What the fake? Assessing the extent of networked political spamming and bots in the propagation of #fakenews on Twitter. Online Information Review, 43(1), 53-71.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2019). Gatekeeping fake news discourses on mainstream media versus social media. Social Science Computer Review, 37(6), 687-704.
Reports
- Tenove, Chris, Ahmed Al-Rawi, Juan Merchan, Manimugdha Sharma, and Gustavo Villela. (2023). Not just words: How reputational attacks harm journalists and undermine press freedom. Vancouver: Global Reporting Centre and the University of British Columbia School of Journalism, Writing, and Media.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2022, December). An empirical assessment of the convoy protest on six online sites. Public Order Emergency Commission (POEC), Government of Canada. Al-Rawi's assessment was referenced in the Commission’s final report in vol. 1 Overview (Executive Summary), vol. 2 Analysis, and vol. 3 Recommendations.
- Alyssa Kann, A., Amr, A., Tenove, C. & Al-Rawi, A. (2022, November 17). How inauthentic Facebook accounts targeted detained Moroccan journalists. The Atlantic Council’s Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab), The Disinformation Project & UBC’s Global Reporting Centre.
- Lewandowsky, S., Cook, J., Schmid, P., Holford, D. L., Finn, A., Lombardi, D., Al-Rawi, A. K., Thomson, A., Leask, J., Juanchich, M., Anderson, E. C., Sah, S., Vraga, E. K., Gavaruzzi, T., Rapp, D. N., Amazeen, M. A., Sinatra, G. M., Kendeou, P., Armaos, K. D., Newman, E. J., Ecker, U. K. H., Tapper, K., Bruns, H. H. B., Pennycook, G., Betsch, C., Hahn, U. (2021). The COVID-19 Vaccine Communication Handbook. A practical guide for improving vaccine communication and fighting misinformation. Repository.essex.ac.uk.
- Armaos, K., Tapper, K., Ecker, U., Juanchich, M., Bruns, H., Gavaruzzi, T., Sah, S., Al-Rawi, A., Lewandowsky, S. (2020). Tips on countering conspiracy theories and disinformation. Shaping tomorrow’s world.org
Articles
- Al-Rawi, A. (2022, May 11). Language matters when Googling controversial people. The Conversation.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2022, April 10). Canada’s Russian embassy weaponizes social media to fuel support for the Ukraine invasion. The Conversation.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2021, August 29). Facebook’s latest federal election integrity initiative is just another marketing tactic. The Conversation.
- Abdelrahman, F. (2021, July 1). Weaponizing fact-checking: What Canada needs to know. The Monitor: Canada Centre for Policy Alternatives.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2019, October, 18). “#Fakenews is being used to discredit mainstream media coverage of the Canadian election. The Conversation.
- Al-Rawi, A. (2019, September 10). Scant evidence of active Twitter bots as Canadian election nears. The Conversation.
- Al-Rawi, A. & Jiwani, Y. (2019, July 23). Russian Twitter trolls stoke anti-immigrant lies ahead of Canadian election. The Conversation.