Generative Artificial Intelligence and Elections
October 3, 2024
The Center for Media Engagement investigates GenAI’s role before, during, and after several key global elections in 2024. Read More
Political Machines: Understanding the Role of AI i...
June 6, 2024
To better understand major trends and common concerns about the role of Generative AI in politics, the Center for Media Engagement conducted interviews with experts in the digital politics space. Read More
Values, Politics, and Misinformation: Examining Co...
April 23, 2024
This study aims to unpack the values that impact the Filipino diaspora’s political viewpoints and understand how political preferences are technologically communicated using these values. Read More
Platform Research Ethics for Academic Research
April 18, 2024
There’s been a lot of research on digital platforms. But how do we know these studies were conducted ethically? And what does it mean to conduct ethical research?
We examine the state of current platform studies ethics. Read More
The Role of Social Media in Iraq’s Tishreen ...
December 7, 2023
This report explores how Iraqis in the diaspora leveraged social media during the Tishreen movement to mobilize both online and offline activism. It also investigates how propaganda and false information shaped this activism. Read More
Misinformation on WhatsApp: Insights From the Cari...
September 26, 2023
WhatsApp has become a dominant platform for communication, entertainment, and news sharing among U.S. diaspora communities. It has also emerged as a significant source of misinformation. Complimenting ongoing and previous research, this report focuses on Caribbean diaspora communities. Read More
Encrypted Messaging Applications and Political Mes...
June 19, 2023
A look at the role EMAs play in global disinformation efforts and the manipulation of public opinion. Read More
Anonymous Civic Participation Behaviors: Differenc...
December 14, 2022
The Center for Media Engagement wanted to find out how some aspects of identity, such as gender, age, education, political orientation, and time spent online, are tied to the ways in which people participate in certain anonymous actions. Read More
Talking Politics on WhatsApp: a Survey of Cuban, I...
November 2, 2022
We asked WhatsApp users in three sub-groups (Cuban Americans, Mexican Americans, and Indian Americans) about their perceptions of the platform; their news and information consumption behaviors; and their encounters with false information. Read More
Texas’ Asian Communities and EMAs: How WhatsApp an...
October 31, 2022
Political campaigns across the United States are paying close attention to the rising political importance of Asian American communities across the country. Nowhere is this clearer than in Texas. Read More
Polarized Information Ecosystems and Encrypted Mes...
August 10, 2022
The Center for Media Engagement examined: How are encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) relevant for propagandists and/or activists in Egypt, Ethiopia, and Libya? How do these platforms fit into the existing (dis-)information landscape? Read More
End-to-end Encryption for Messaging Apps: Importan...
July 6, 2022
The Propaganda Research Lab at the Center for Media Engagement (CME), in collaboration with Omidyar Network, hosted a RightsCon 2022 session on encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) and their global use for political propaganda, mis- and disinformation, activism, and news Read More
Solving Questions of Digital Literacy Through Comm...
June 23, 2022
The Center for Media Engagement explores how public interest principles can be incorporated in social media to combat mis-information in larger communities. Read More
Testimony: “A Growing Threat: The Impact of ...
April 26, 2022
Testimony of Samuel Woolley, Ph.D. for Congressional hearing "A Growing Threat: The Impact of Disinformation Targeted at Communities of Color." Read More
Escaping the Mainstream? Pitfalls and Opportunitie...
March 22, 2022
This report builds the foundation of our future research on diaspora communities, false information, and EMAs with regard to the 2022 mid-term elections and provides an assessment useful for the design of community-centric counter programs. Read More
How Digital Surveillance Deters Protest Participat...
March 9, 2022
This piece provides insights into the ways in which protests are surveilled and outlines two main issues with the practices: (1) general problems with the collection of personal data at protests, and (2) the problematic ways in which protest coverage is used toward political ends. Read More
Three Ways COVID-19 Affected Kenyan Media and Ho...
January 18, 2022
In the case of COVID-19, disinformation can occur when there is an intention to create a different viewpoint from that of vetted healthcare officials and authorities regarding the disease’s status, spread, prevalence, and management. While this phenomenon has been heavily studied in the U.S. and many European countries, parts of… Read More
Location-Based Targeting: History, Usage, and Rela...
December 14, 2021
The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement created an overview on location-based targeting, including its history, the technologies behind it, and its usage over the years. The report also includes recommendations addressing some key concerns. Read More
Political Talk in Private: Encrypted Messaging App...
December 1, 2021
The Propaganda Lab at the Center for Media Engagement expanded its research into the use of encrypted messaging apps (EMAs) for political talk, analyzing both how EMAs are used by people for everyday political talk and how EMA technology is being used for coordinated manipulation campaigns in Indonesia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Ukraine. Read More
How Politics, Generation, News Use, and Time Onlin...
August 26, 2021
The Center for Media Engagement investigated how certain socio-political differences — including where people get their news, time spent online, political views, and age — relate to people’s views about anonymity. Read More
Geolocation Surveillance Roundtable
March 30, 2021
The University of Texas at Austin’s Center for Media Engagement and the Surveillance Technology Oversight Project (S.T.O.P.) hosted a roundtable about mass surveillance in the age of mass protest. We analyzed how electronic surveillance is used to monitor political protest, mass gatherings, and how location tracking enables microtargeting of propaganda… Read More
Disclosures of NYPD Surveillance Technologies Rais...
February 23, 2021
The disclosures by NYPD – the first required by the POST Act – raise substantial questions about how police in New York acquire and maintain data across dozens of surveillance systems, how NYPD thinks about safety and possible harms to society, and reveal new details about the suite of technologies enabling covert police activities on social media networks. Read More
A Reflection on the Media in 2020
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Join Us: “A Reflection on the Media in 2020” with David Fahrenthold, Arthel Neville, and Dan Rather Read More
Press Freedom in the Age of Alternative Facts
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David McCraw will draw on his experiences as a lawyer and as the Deputy General Counsel for The New York Times to explore the ethical challenges awaiting journalists and the American public that arise at the intersection of law, ethics, and technology. Read More
Peer-to-Peer Texting and the 2020 U.S. Election: H...
October 27, 2020
New forms of direct communication, such as campaign apps and digital wallet passes on smartphones, are poised to bring political messaging to even higher levels of intimacy and efficacy, and, disturbingly, render them factually impossible to audit by outsiders. Read More
Encrypted Propaganda: Political Manipulation Via E...
October 26, 2020
The Center for Media Engagement propaganda research team spent the past year studying political manipulation on encrypted messaging applications (EMAs) in the U.S., India, and Mexico. Read More
Social Media Influencers and the 2020 U.S. Electio...
October 14, 2020
The Center for Media Engagement's propaganda research team reports on the phenomenon of social media influencers as an avenue for political campaign communications, describes the challenges this issue poses to platforms and governments, and briefly explores solutions. Read More
COGSEC Pre-conference Competitions
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COGSEC is hosting two pre-conference competitions over the next few months. Read More
Police could Be Scanning Your Social Media From a ...
September 2, 2020
Protests following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota, continue to seize national and global attention. Videos of peaceful protestors demanding justice and rioters setting businesses ablaze have provided two seemingly different narratives of the summer’s intense social activism. There have been protests in at least 1,700 cities across… Read More
Propaganda Research
March 13, 2020
The study of propaganda at the Center for Media Engagement investigates how emergent technologies are used in domestic and global political communication. We focus on the use of social media and other digital tools, like generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI) to manipulate public opinion (known as computational propaganda). Our research has… Read More
Upcoming Event: Cognitive Security Conference
March 2, 2020
((POSTPONED UNTIL FURTHER NOTICE… Stay tuned for more details)) The Center for Media Engagement is thrilled to announce the inaugural Cognitive Security (COGSEC) Conference. The conference will be held at The University of Texas at Austin on August 13-14, 2020 in collaboration with Tim Hwang. The Cognitive Security Conference… Read More
CME Program Director Samuel Woolley Publishes Book
January 6, 2020
Fake news posts and Twitter trolls were just the beginning. What will happen when misinformation moves from our social media feeds into our everyday lives? Read More
CME Launches Propaganda Division
January 1, 2020
Under the direction of Dr. Samuel Woolley, our propaganda division will focus on how emergent technologies are used in and around global political communication. Read More