#103 Jon Roozenbeek on Ukraine and Disinformation

The Cognitive Crucible is a forum that presents different perspectives and emerging thought leadership related to the information environment. The opinions expressed by guests are their own, and do not necessarily reflect the views of or endorsement by the Information Professionals Association.

During this episode, Jon Roozenbeek discusses his upcoming book project, Information, Influence and War in Ukraine--including analyses related to media and identity in Wartime Donbas. He discusses inoculation theory as a method for countering misinformation and the Harmony Square Game project, as well.

Resources:

• Cognitive Crucible Podcast Episodes Mentioned
  • #56 Bob Jones on Governance
• Dissertation: Media and Identity in Wartime Donbas, 2014-2017
• Research exposes long-term failure of Russian propaganda
• Harmony Square Game
• Breaking Harmony Square: A game that “inoculates” against political misinformation
• https://www.psychol.cam.ac.uk/staff/dr-jon-roozenbeek
• Polling Data: (scroll down to “what Donbas residents want for their future” for the polling data mentioned)
• Go Viral game
• Study: Towards psychological herd immunity: Cross-cultural evidence for two prebunking interventions against COVID-19 misinformation: 2 large and cross-cultural studies into the effectiveness of the game as a way to counter COVID-19 misinformation, including a longitudinal study
• Bad News game
• Study: Fake news game confers psychological resistance against online misinformation
• Study: Good News about Bad News: Gamified Inoculation Boosts Confidence and Cognitive Immunity Against Fake News
• Study: Long-term effectiveness of inoculation against misinformation: Three longitudinal experiments: longitudinal study; we followed up with participants to see how long the “inoculation” effect of the Bad News game lasts; the answer is 2+ months, provided people are given regular “booster shots” or reminders
• Study: Technique-based inoculation against real-world misinformation
• Harmony Square Game
• Study: Breaking Harmony Square: A game that “inoculates” against political misinformation: this study was published in a journal intended not only for academics but also policymakers and so on; so it’s written in a more accessible style than most academic publications
• Inoculation Theory and Misinformation: Recent review of how to use inoculation theory to counter misinformation

Link to full show notes and resources

https://information-professionals.org/episode/cognitive-crucible-episode-103

Guest Bio: 

Jon Roozenbeek is the British Academy Postdoctoral Fellow at the Cambridge Social Decision-Making Lab. His research focuses on misinformation, vaccine hesitancy, online extremism and inoculation theory. As part of his research, he co-developed the award-winning fake news games Bad News, Harmony Square and Go Viral. Jon is also interested in social media research, agent-based modeling and natural language processing. His doctoral dissertation (University of Cambridge, 2020) examined media discourse in conflict zones, primarily the "People's Republics" of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern Ukraine.

About: The Information Professionals Association (IPA) is a non-profit organization dedicated to exploring the role of information activities, such as influence and cognitive security, within the national security sector and helping to bridge the divide between operations and research. Its goal is to increase interdisciplinary collaboration between scholars and practitioners and policymakers with an interest in this domain.

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