Focused Research Program

Major mis/disinformation climate initiative at Boston University—how it spreads, who it captures, and how to stop it

The Boston University Institute for Global Sustainability, in partnership with the Rafik B. Hariri Institute for Computing and Computational Science & Engineering, has awarded its inaugural Focused Research Program for the 2022-2023 academic year. The program is designed to evolve and advance Boston University’s research in computing and data science around areas of strategic importance and emerging opportunity.

Data and Misinformation in an Era of Sustainability and Climate Change Crises

To further understand the critical role of communication in shaping public opinion on climate in the U.S., the Data and Misinformation in an Era of Sustainability and Climate Change Crises FRP will analyze the nature, origins, spread, and impacts of climate change mis- and disinformation, as well as the possibilities of mitigating misinformed beliefs.

The year-long study will center on three core areas:

How climate disinformation spreads through social media sites, primarily Twitter and Reddit
How native advertising, a deceptive form of paid content that mimics news articles, is employed for corporate communications campaigns
What influence disinformation has on public attitudes, including which intervention strategies effectively dispel misperceptions about climate change

News

That “News Story” on Climate Change You’re Reading Might Be a Greenwashing Ad Instead: COM-led study seeks effective counters to disinformation about planetary warming (BU Today, February 6, 2023)
How Do I Talk to a Climate Change Denier? (BU Today, September 26, 2022)
Combating Misinformation In The Age of Technology (BU Experts, July 29, 2022)

Spring Symposium

The research team’s findings will be shared at a symposium on May 16, 2023, for climate communication scholars from the Boston area and around the world. Stay tuned for registration details.

Research Team

Researchers and experts from across Boston University are collaborating on this interdisciplinary study, including scholars with expertise in public opinion, political communication, and native advertising; mis- and disinformation; social media analytics, computational sciences and natural language processing; and corporate communication, business and finance. Internationally recognized experts in fields that range from public health to environmental science will also advise.

Leaders

Champions

Research Thrusts

Thrust 1: The spread and evolution of climate change disinformation through social media

Research goal: To build a catalog of prominent narratives of disinformation about climate change circulating in Twitter and Reddit; to identify major accounts promoting disinformation and the networks of which they are a part; to model shifting patterns of climate disinformation around key events during 2022-2023

Thrust Champions

Thrust 2: Climate disinformation and native advertising

Research goal: To extend related research to focus on the discussion of climate issues in native advertising, especially to identify how corporations engaged in native advertising are using the medium to affect public attitudes towards climate

Thrust Champions

Thrust 3: Public attitudes and behavior in response to climate disinformation and correction

Research goal: To understand the prevalence of certain forms of climate misinformation among the American public; to compare and reconcile competing frameworks for understanding Americans’ understanding of this issue; to test experimentally the effects of disinformation and the effectiveness of correction strategies

Thrust Champions

Overview: FY23 Request for Proposals

The proposal period for the 2022-2023 academic year has now closed.

The BU Institute for Global Sustainability, in collaboration with the Hariri Institute for Computing, is seeking to fund and promote a year-long, multi-disciplinary Focused Research Program (FRP) to evaluate how misinformation/disinformation campaigns against sustainability and/or climate change proliferate through social and emerging media and what their influence is on related social attitudes and action.

This FRP will bring together a community of BU researchers from across a multitude of disciplines including, but not limited to, behavioral and cognitive science, climate and sustainability, communication, disinformation, machine learning, misinformation, policy, and systems.

For full details, visit the proposal page under Special Track: Data and Misinformation in an Era of Sustainability and Climate Change Crises.

Brief Overview

This special track aims to fund and promote one project at $100,000 – $125,000 with the goal of investigating some or all of the following directions:

Identifying the type, nature, scope, and frequency of particular misinformation/disinformation campaigns against sustainability and/or climate change
Characterizing who is receptive to such campaigns against sustainability or climate change, and the types of public or social groups that are immune, vulnerable, receptive, or amplifying of such misinformation/disinformation
Tracing where such anti-sustainability or climate change misinformation/disinformation campaigns come from, the actors involved in their deployment, and how they chain out to broader society
Developing better methods of detection for misinformation/disinformation campaigns, as well as policy or technical solutions towards combating them
Determining what impact they may have, if any, on social attitudes and preferences, but also more broadly on patterns of voting, investment, or policymaking
Examining how social or emerging media can help in informing and motivating people towards sustainability, understanding environmental justice, or progressive and reasoned social action
Data and computing are expected to play a key role in the proposed research, along with environment, sustainability, and the social sciences.

Inquiries

Faculty interested in submitting a proposal are strongly encouraged to discuss their program idea and community structure early in their planning process with the IGS’s Director, Benjamin Sovacool (sovacool@bu.edu), and/or Hariri Institute’s Director, Eric Kolaczyk (kolaczyk@bu.edu). Proposals are due by April 7, 2022.