Simulacra@Scale

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This ongoing project understands various aspects of evidence circulated through contemporary ICTs. Overall, the project uses fieldwork and document analysis to interrogate how concepts of evidence both determine and are shaped by by politics, culture, and socio-technical constructions. De-colonial, feminist STS, and critical theories inform analysis of informational objects, their technical production, and popular discourse around those objects, as well as commonly-proposed solutions.

Paris, B., *Carmien, K., and *Marshall, M. (May, 2022). “We Want to Do More, But…” New Jersey Public Library Approaches to Misinformation. Library and Information Science Research (LISR), 44(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lisr.2022.101157

External disciplinary fields and popular discourse have called upon libraries to explain and address the phenomena related to the prevalence of false and misleading information. The authors provide a critique of this call based in primary research on public libraries in the state of New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic. To compliment reviews of public library websites across the state of New Jersey for listed tactics to address misinformation, library staff were surveyed and interviewed on strategies they employ to stem the tide of misinformation and what they might need to work more effectively in the context. The findings reveal tactics employed by the libraries, ranging from active to passive interventions, and literacy-driven to topic-driven tactics, as well as what library staff articulated as impediments to their ability to address misinformation, including the lack of resources, the perception that the library should be a neutral arbiter in these discussions, and that they are “speaking to the choir” with their efforts. The findings can be useful in evaluating existing methods of addressing misinformation within public libraries and developing new tactics and partnerships that can be leveraged to achieve these goals.

Paris, B., Marcello, G., and Reynolds, R. (February, 2022). Disinformation detox: teaching and learning about mis- and disinformation using socio-technical systems research perspectives. Information and Learning Sciences 123(1/2) 80-110. https://doi.org/10.1108/ILS-09-2021-0083

This paper aims to address some limitations in existing approaches to the study of mis- and dis-information and offers what the authors propose as a more comprehensive approach to framing and studying these issues, geared toward the undergraduate level of learner. In doing so, the authors prioritize social shaping of technology and critical informatics perspectives as lenses for explicating and understanding complex mis- and dis-information phenomena. One purpose is to offer readers an understanding of the mis- and dis-information studies landscape, and advocate for the merit of taking the given approach the authors outline. This conceptual paper contributes a fully articulated undergraduate syllabus for a course the authors entitled “Disinformation Detox.” The article's innovation is a way of framing the mis- and dis-information knowledge domain in terms of various "loci of change" using social shaping of technology and critical informatics perspectives. The authors argue that the proposed approach offers students the opportunity to cultivate a complex form of what Milner and Phillips describe as “ecological literacy” that is in keeping with the mis- and dis-information problem domain.

Paris, B., (December, 2021). Configuring Fakes: Digitized Bodies, the Politics of Evidence, and Agency. Social Media + Society 7(4) 1-13. https://doi.org/10.1177/20563051211062919

This comparative case study analysis used more than 200 examples of audiovisual manipulation collected from 2016 to 2021 to understand manipulated audiovisual and visual content produced by artificial intelligence, machine learning, and unsophisticated methods. This article includes a chart that categorizes the methods used to produce and disseminate audiovisual content featuring false personation as well as the harms that result. The article and the findings therein answer questions surrounding the broad issues of politics of evidence and harm related to audiovisual manipulation, harassment, privacy, and silencing to offer suggestions towards reconfiguring the public’s agency over technical systems and envisioning ways forward that meaningfully promote justice.

Paris, B. and Donovan, J. (September 18, 2019). Deepfakes & Cheap Fakes: The Manipulation of Audio and Visual Evidence. Data & Society Research Institute. https://datasociety.net/output/deepfakes-and-cheap-fakes/

Britt Paris and Joan Donovan trace decades of audiovisual (AV) manipulation to demonstrate how evolving technologies aid consolidations of power in society. Like many past media technologies, deepfakes and cheap fakes have jolted traditional rules around evidence and truth, and trusted institutions must step in to redefine those boundaries. This process, however, risks a select few experts gaining “juridical, economic, or discursive power,” thus further entrenching social, political, and cultural hierarchies. Those without the power to negotiate truth–including people of color, women, and the LGBTQA+ community–will be left vulnerable to increased harms, say the authors. Paris and Donovan argue that we need more than an exclusively technological approach to address the threats of deep and cheap fakes. Any solution must take into account both the history of evidence and the “social processes that produce truth” so that the power of expertise does not lie only in the hands of a few and reinforce structural inequality, but rather, is distributed amongst at risk-communities.
Thanks to social media, both kinds of AV manipulation can now be spread at unprecedented speeds. For a spectrum diagram, click here.