Bachelor of Arts, Capital University, 2022, Communication

“Fake news” has magnified media credibility and utility as issues of the digital age. The COVID-19 pandemic, by presenting life-threatening uncertainty, has created new interest in online information and perceptions thereof. This study examines how the crisis and its political implications have affected college students' perceptions of online news media. A survey was administered to Capital University's undergraduate student body via email to gauge students' perceptions of online news media credibility and utility since the pandemic's onset. Other questions explored perceptions of “fake news,” social media use, and the value of user comments. Descriptive and inferential statistics were used to draw conclusions about how perceptions of media credibility and utility are affected by the perceived presence of a crisis and its politicization. The study found a negative correlation between a crisis's politicization and online news media credibility and a positive correlation between the perceived presence of a crisis and online news media utility. Understanding how college students consume and perceive online news media may provide insights into how crises affect the public's perceptions of online news media.

Committee: Lois Foreman-Wernet Ph.D. (Advisor); Stephen Koch Ph.D. (Advisor); Sharon Croft Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Stephanie Wilson Ph.D. (Other) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Communication; Information Science; Journalism; Political Science

Doctor of Education (Ed.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2018, Leadership Studies

In 1785, Thomas Jefferson wrote,“The most effectual engines for [pacifying a nation] are the public papers... [A despotic] government always [keeps] a kind of standing army of news writers who, without any regard to truth or to what should be like truth, [invent] and put into the papers whatever might serve the ministers. This suffices with the mass of the people who have no means of distinguishing the false from the true paragraphs of a newspaper” (Sec.51). Jefferson's views are as salient today as they were in 1785. Some 232 years later, a “mass of people” struggle to distinguish between news that is real and news that is false. The largest context for this struggle to date was the 2016 United States presidential election (Pew Center, 2016c). For some, the “fake news” found on social media has become a harbinger for the emergence of a despotic government (Pew Center). The purpose of this qualitative study was to understand the phenomenon of fake news through the lived experience of graduate students in the United States. The prospective student participants were pursuing advanced degrees in higher education. This research study utilized the uses and gratifications theory (UGT) approach to analyze how and why people used social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. In light of the influence of fake news on the 2016 presidential election, this study also aimed to investigate the reasons why people believed that fake news were appealing. The thematic analysis revealed people were gratified by the use of social media for connecting with friends and family, gathering and sharing information, and as a vehicle of expression. Participants found a significant amount of fake news stories on social media during the 2016 U.S. presidential election. They tried to identify and differentiate between fake news and real news using the fact-checking websites and major news sources. However, the two significant themes that emerged during the interviews illustrated that (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Judith May (Committee Chair); Dawn Anderson (Committee Member); Angel González (Committee Member); Paul Johnson (Committee Member); Kristina LaVenia (Committee Member) Subjects: Educational Leadership; Mass Media

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2015, Journalism (Communication)

Satirical news from websites such as onion.com have attracted news consumers into believing these stories as real. Hence, it is imperative to investigate the factors that attract news consumers into believing satirical news as true. This thesis examines content and source cues for levels of satire and source reputability to investigate their effects on perceived believability of satirical news across genres. In experiment one, 80 participants viewed manipulated news stories measured as high and low on satire, while in experiment two, 64 participants viewed manipulated satirical stories with high-reputable and low-reputable sources from entertainment and science genres. Results show perceived believability is different across news genres. Satire in science stories is not easily perceived as high-satire science news is perceived more believable than high-satire entertainment news. Source reputability did not affect believability of satirical science news. Other findings and implications are discussed.

Committee: Kalyango Yusuf Jr. (Committee Chair); Jatin Srivastava (Committee Member); Hans Meyer (Committee Member) Subjects: Communication; Journalism

Ph.D., Antioch University, 2024, Leadership and Change

Fighting false information, propaganda, open lies, rumors, misinformation, and disinformation by attacking it directly and challenging it is the dominant strategy for dealing with false beliefs (Lazer et al., 2018; Maseri et al., 2020; Van Bavel et al., 2021), and it is an important one. Refuting falsity is crucial. At the same time, there are instances when fighting false information does not work (Ardevol-Abreu et al., 2020; McIntyre, 2018; Van Bavel et al., 2021). One of the reasons is that it denies another's worldview, belief systems, and, as a result, their identity and even right to exist. Searching for alternative strategies for dealing with falsity, this study used qualitative research methodology and conducted three focus group discussions. My research findings show that identifying and framing a narrative behind falsity shifts the dynamic from facts to interaction, from fighting to beginning relationships to that narrative, and potentially people who stand for it, consciously or unconsciously. It allows one to find a belief system and a worldview of the other, and to engage and interact with it. Thus, there is a shift from finding who is telling the truth or lies to providing space for various belief systems and worldviews to interact with each other. Making this shift changes the power dynamic and empowers human beings to stop being simply victims of falsity and gain agency. My research also shows that there is a high need for talent and skills to hold polarities and different narratives, allowing them to co-exist and not deny each other, facilitating unpredictable and unimaginable ways to interact with each other, and bring more flow into communication instead of distancing even further. Finding narratives behind falsity and holding the opposite stories allow one to see falsity as not just an absolute evil, but potentially meaningful, transforming it into an opportunity for community-building processes and for people to work on differe (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Christopher Voparil PhD (Committee Chair); Jennifer Raymond PhD (Committee Member); Nader Robert Shabahangi PhD (Committee Member) Subjects: Behavioral Sciences; Communication; Information Science; Journalism; Mass Communications; Social Research

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2023, Engineering and Applied Science: Computer Science

The last decade has seen a considerable uptick in the spread of misinformation through the medium of Online Social Networks (OSNs) such as Facebook and Twitter. About 47% of Americans are receiving their daily news via social media with Facebook being the most dominant source of their information. Facebook has about 210 million American users averaging to about 98.7 million Americans who rely on Facebook for their news. Due to the rise in the spread of misinformation through these platforms, we also find a rise in the amount of research on the topic in the past few years. A typical AI-based approach in this regard requires semantic analysis of text to derive meaning, which proves to be quite difficult due to differences in regions and languages. Alternative approaches study the behavior of participants under different circumstances when introduced to false information. Recent findings show that improving news literacy amongst individuals leads to a reduction in the spread of misinformation. The work in this thesis focuses on targeting news literate individuals in an abstract OSN, and utilizing crowdsourcing mechanics to reduce the rate of spread of misinformation in the system. We modify the traditional SIR model of disease spread to treat each article as an individual disease such that individuals in a network can asynchronously interact with multiple articles. We then evaluate the performance of the model under different rates of article generation and different fractions of false articles in the system.

Committee: Ali Minai Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Yizong Cheng Ph.D. (Committee Member); Raj Bhatnagar Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science

MDES, University of Cincinnati, 2022, Design, Architecture, Art and Planning: Design

To minimize the spread of fake news, a media literacy mindset can be cultivated through education that teaches skills for identifying false information. This study focuses on media literacy for retired adults, aged 65 and above, who experience post-retirement disconnection from society leading to greater susceptibility to deception by fake news. In order to address this issue, a study was created to (1) understand fake news features and the state of the issue, (2) develop user journey maps showing the receipt and sharing of information on social media and create a flowchart of media literacy education, (3) generate design guidelines for a media literacy education platform design, and (4) implement these guidelines into a design proposal for a media literacy education platform. This study collected fake news features and categorized them into five groups by affinity mapping; these five groups include headings, sources, content, images, and videos. The researcher then carried out a thematic analysis on an interview with experts who contributed to helping people identify fake news. Based on the results of this analysis, user journey maps and a flowchart were created to demonstrate the process of sharing information on social media and teaching media literacy. By integrating these insights, the design guidelines of Media Literacy Education for retired adults were generated. This study developed seven design guidelines that are intended to (1) provoke awareness of fake news at first glance, (2) demonstrate comprehension thoroughly, (3) use common fake news examples to connect with the audience's life, (4) systematically introduce false information features, (5) cultivate critical thinking ability, (6) share credible channels as information sources, and (7) introduce fact-checking tools and simple report methods. Lastly, this study applied these guidelines to an online educational platform design that can be implemented in the future, supporting retired adults' lea (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Vittoria Daiello Ph.D. (Committee Member); Emily Verba Fischer M.F.A. (Committee Member) Subjects: Design

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), Ohio University, 2021, Journalism (Communication)

Spread of mis- and dis-information has emerged as one of the most concerning threat to democratic processes in the United States. Who is to blame for such a rise in the spread of mis- and dis-information is yet to be decided, however, this study aimed to explore how such forms of information is consumed and believed by the audiences. This research expands on our understanding of how ideological cues work to promote mis/disinformation consumption along with other factors like, political opinion leaders, cognitive dissonance and personal ideology. Furthermore, the study explores the two-step selective evaluation process, which an information consumer goes through before making any decision on the information. The decision is then further rationalized in post-decisional effects. A survey experiment was conducted on 429 respondents who showed that any information content will be palatable to them if those information carries ideologically confirming cues. Moreover, the study used opinion leader as manipulation to test cognitive dissonance, consonance, and resonance against the personal ideology of the respondents to further divulge into the process of mis/disinformation consumption. A deductive thematic analysis of audience responses gives a direction to the decision-making process when faced with congruent or incongruent information.

Committee: Victoria LaPoe (Advisor) Subjects: Cognitive Psychology; Communication; Journalism; Mass Communications; Mass Media; Political Science

Bachelor of Arts, Wittenberg University, 2021, Political Science

The 2019 Mueller Report revealed a campaign by the Russian Internet Research Agency to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election and insert systemic distrust in Western democracy. The campaign engaged in “information warfare” using false accounts, or bots, to prey on inherent social vulnerabilities that are amplified by the novelty and anonymity of social media, such as echo chambers and the rapid spread of fake news. This thesis explores the aims, methods, effects, and behavioral patterns of bots. It also proposes BotWise, a model designed to distill average behavior on the social media platform Twitter from a set of real users and compare that data against novel input.

Committee: Tyler Highlander (Advisor); Staci Rhine (Advisor); Alyssa Hoofnagle (Committee Member); Yu Bin (Committee Member) Subjects: Computer Science; Political Science; Sociology; Technology

Master of Science (MS), Ohio University, 2021, Journalism (Communication)

The public primarily learns about scientific information from the news media. These news media have been, unfortunately, found guilty of fueling: biased coverage of climate change, misinformation about climate change, and politicization of climate science. “Disinformation outfits,” who are comprised of industry actors, prominent climate change deniers, and their organizations also used or attempted to use the news media to discredit climate scientists with the goal of accelerating the level of public uncertainty about global climate change and slow action to prevent it. This thesis explores how the news media discussed a small but very vocal cohort of climate change denialists throughout the 1990s. The use of “fake experts” has been found to be one of the most powerful techniques for effective misinformation campaigns. This paper examines the inclusion of key climate change skeptics via quantitative content analysis in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Times of London from 1989-2006. This paper also researches the prevalence of legitimization strategies iv that weaker parties use to amplify their messaging. The results find that skeptic inclusion was much higher in U.S. conservative papers than U.K. conservative papers. Left-center papers were more likely to include “compromised” scientists and discuss climate change controversies than conservative papers. Conservative papers were more likely to include irrelevant “fake experts” and actively misuse and misrepresent scientific information, as well discredit climate scientists. Skeptics were discussed more during years of particular significance to climate change history suggesting they were capitalizing on media opportunity structures. This thesis also found evidence of early “source hacking,” or the targeting of journalists to spread misinformation.

Committee: Mike Sweeney Dr. (Committee Member); Rosanna Planer (Committee Member); Alexander Godulla Dr. (Committee Chair) Subjects: Environmental Science; History; International Relations; Journalism; Science History; World History

MS, University of Cincinnati, 2020, Education, Criminal Justice, and Human Services: Information Technology-Distance Learning

In 2017, Twitter acknowledged the presence of bots – automated or fake accounts, controlled by either foreign governments or U.S. citizens posing as fake online personas. These accounts targeted and interacted with users using certain politically inclined keywords and posting massive amounts of false and misleading information. Consequently, bots posing as Americans were loud voices that led to a divisive social and political climate. Simultaneously, distrust in mainstream news sources was plummeting causing more people to use social media as their main source of information. While tools exist that can determine if a given Twitter account is an authentic user or bot, they are not the most accessible products. Many require searching for an individual screen name on a separate web page, or advanced programming skills to analyze lists of users. This study examined this gap and determined the system and information requirements to develop a browser plugin that can detect bots, and the political leaning of a user's social media feed. By examining both open-source projects and public API's, this work was able to narrow down the requirements while providing the guidelines to build such a plugin.

Committee: Shane Halse Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Jess Kropczynski Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Information Technology

Bachelor of Science of Journalism (BSJ), Ohio University, 2020, Journalism

This thesis analyzes three years of coverage of "fake news" from Haaretz (Israel) and the New York Times to illustrate how systemic media delegitimization functions as an arm of right-wing populism, and what this rhetoric reveals about the contemporary rise of right-wing populism. This will be achieved by focusing specifically on the rhetoric used by the current leaders of the United States and Israel – respectively, President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu – at the time that the analyzed articles were published. The keyword searches used are “Trump” and “fake news”; “Netanyahu” and “fake news”; “Trump” and “liberal media”; “Netanyahu” and “liberal media”; “Trump” and “lying press”; and “Netanyahu and “lying press”. These terms are derived from the language and terminology used by Trump and Netanyahu when they aim to delegitimize the mainstream media. Suggestions for journalistic best practices when reporting on such terminology and leadership are offered in the conclusion.

Committee: Aimee Edmondson Dr. (Advisor) Subjects: Journalism

Doctor of Philosophy, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

Social influence shapes the political opinions people form and the norms they adopt. I show that three key types of social networks drive the type of social influence people face: fully-connected deliberative networks, social hierarchies based on status, and star networks that group up around a central opinion leader. In chapter one, I lay the foundation for thinking of public opinion as emerging from people's social structures. I then apply the theory to international norm adoption and show that the type of network an individual is placed in has a direct effect on the norms they adopt, over and above partisanship. In chapter two, I use a custom-made Twitter-like environment to show experimentally that hierarchies foster the adoption of partisan-leaning norms as members pursue status. Stars, in contrast, inoculate their members against false claims due to the reputations costs opinion leaders face in misleading their followers. In chapter three, I expand on these findings by priming subjects in a survey experiment with an image of their social structure, and show that placing a political independent in a social hierarchy at the individual-level makes them favor U.S. isolationism, international competition in domains such as trade, and overall unilateralism on the world stage. The conclusion of these two studies is clear: social hierarchies prime competitive political thinking, often leading to the adoption of norms based on false premises, and star networks help their followers sift through the noise and misinformation that prevails in online fully-connected networks. These findings highlight the importance of viewing norm adoption and opinion formation as a social endeavor that is deeply influenced by one's reference network. As online social networks continue to expand, identifying the types of networks that characterize these social environments becomes imperative for students of public opinion and international relations that seek to understand why some norms an (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Skyler Cranmer (Committee Chair); Christopher Gelpi (Committee Member); Richard Herrmann (Committee Member); Jon Krosnick (Committee Member) Subjects: International Relations; Political Science

Master of Arts, The Ohio State University, 2019, Political Science

This thesis explores the comparison between political misinformation and biological infections. The current thesis addresses problems in political science and communications involving measurements of political ecacy and reverse causality with misinformation studies. The thesis ends by suggesting a new way forward, by borrowing methodologies developed in epidemiology to best address reoccurring issues of misinformation in American public opinion. Doing so will allow readers to better categorize knowledge, forecast real-world phenomena, and recognize the dangerous structure and composition that exists with misinformation.

Committee: William Minozzi (Advisor); Michael Neblo (Committee Member) Subjects: Political Science