Project description DEENESFRITPL Studying the impact of computational propaganda In recent years, social media have become increasingly influential in civic life, political discourse, and public engagement. Unfortunately, political and ideological figures have taken advantage of this trend by using digital and automated scripts to manipulate the public, and computational propaganda in the form of bots and algorithms has further exacerbated this issue. The EU-funded COMPROP project will bring together experts in social sciences, politics, programming, and other fields to conduct an in-depth study and document the use and impact of these techniques in modern society. Show the project objective Hide the project objective Objective Social media can have an impressive impact on civic engagement and political discourse. Yet increasingly we find political actors using digital media and automated scripts for social control. Computational propaganda—through bots, botnets, and algorithms—has become one of the most concerning impacts of technology innovation. Unfortunately, bot identification and impact analysis are among the most difficult research challenges facing the social and computer sciences.COMPROP objectives are to advance a) rigorous social and computer science on bot use, b) critical theory on digital manipulation and political outcomes, c) our understanding of how social media propaganda impacts social movement organization and vitality. This project will innovate through i) “real-time” social and information science actively disseminated to journalists, researchers, policy experts and the interested public, ii) the first detailed data set of political bot activity, iii) deepened expertise through cultivation of a regional expert network able to detect bots and their impact in Europe.COMPROP will achieve this through multi-method and reflexive work packages: 1) international qualitative fieldwork with teams of bot makers and computer scientists working to detect bots; 2a) construction of an original event data set of incidents of political bot use and 2b) treatment of the data set with fuzzy set and traditional statistics; 3) computational theory for detecting political bots and 4) a sustained dissemination strategy. This project will employ state-of-the-art “network ethnography” techniques, use the latest fuzzy set / qualitative comparative statistics, and advance computational theory on bot detection via cutting-edge algorithmic work enhanced by new crowd-sourcing techniques.Political bots are already being deployed over social networks in Europe. COMPROP will put the best methods in social and computer science to work on the size of the problem and the possible solutions. Fields of science natural sciencescomputer and information sciencesartificial intelligencesocial sciencespolitical sciencespolitical communicationnatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencebig datanatural sciencescomputer and information sciencesdata sciencedata mining Programme(s) H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme Topic(s) ERC-CoG-2014 - ERC Consolidator Grant Call for proposal ERC-2014-CoG See other projects for this call Funding Scheme ERC-COG - Consolidator Grant Host institution THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD Net EU contribution € 1 980 112,00 Address WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES OX1 2JD Oxford United Kingdom See on map Region South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 980 112,00 Beneficiaries (1) Sort alphabetically Sort by Net EU contribution Expand all Collapse all THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD United Kingdom Net EU contribution € 1 980 112,00 Address WELLINGTON SQUARE UNIVERSITY OFFICES OX1 2JD Oxford See on map Region South East (England) Berkshire, Buckinghamshire and Oxfordshire Oxfordshire Activity type Higher or Secondary Education Establishments Links Contact the organisation Opens in new window Website Opens in new window Participation in EU R&I programmes Opens in new window HORIZON collaboration network Opens in new window Total cost € 1 980 112,00
