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Newsletter #4 - (Mis)Translating Deceit

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Sep 8

Our latest newsletter has just been published on our website! You can read it here - www.mis-translating-deceit.com/newsletter/n...

June - August 2025

Mauritania, a laboratory for the vulnerabilities of Sahelian information ecosystems - (Mis)Translating Deceit

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Sep 1

🚨New blog post! @nicolashenin.net Nicolas Henin provides a vulnerability study on Mauritania's information ecosystem, and provides solutions on how it can strengthen these vulnerabilities. You can read it on our website here - www.mis-translating-deceit.com/project-blog...

Nicolas Henin provides a vulnerability study on Mauritania's information ecosystem, and provides solutions on how it can strengthen these vulnerabilities.

How Russia is trying to win over the world beyond the West - BBC News

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Precious Chatterje-Doody @preciouschatd.bsky.social · Aug 26

The BBC has done a deep dive into current activities of Russia’s RT network, extensively citing research from me, @rhyscrilley.bsky.social @m-deceit.bsky.social et al in our new (free-to-download!) book.

@oupolitics.bsky.social

www.bbc.com/news/article...

Over the past three years, Russian state-backed news channel RT has expanded its international presence.

www.bbc.com

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Aug 18

🚨New blog alert! Olga Vlasova, Visiting Researcher at King's College London, examines Russian propaganda, through the lens of emotional governance. You can read Olga's blog here - www.mis-translating-deceit.com/project-blog...

Emotional Governance in Wartime Russia: Pacification, Fear and the Manipulation of Hope - (Mis)Translating Deceit

Olga Vlasova's blog examines Russian propaganda, through the lens of emotional governance.

Debunking Putin’s New World Order - FPIF

Sveta Yefimenko @svetayefimenko.bsky.social · Dec 3

New piece from me arguing that the Kremlin's narratives are familiarly ideological: "The bogeyman is no longer capitalism as such, but what Putin described at Valdai as the 'greed of those Western elites,' with 'elite' being today’s hip, populist term for 'bourgeois.'"
fpif.org/debunking-pu...

The Russian president's speech at the Valdai Discussion Club was full of paranoia and propaganda.

fpif.org

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Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists @thebulletin.org · May 13

"Amplifying doubt: How Russian trolls leveraged pandemic uncertainty for strategic gain," by Maksim Markelov. (9/11)

Amplifying doubt: How Russian trolls leveraged pandemic uncertainty for strategic gain

Russian state-sponsored trolls seized on the moment of uncertainty posed by COVID-19—not to promote any coherent counter-narrative, but to make coherence itself elusive. Their strategy was not to pers...

thebulletin.org

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jul 21

Congratulations to one of our co-investigators @neilsadler.bsky.social on the publication of his new article in Communication Theory, "Suspicious stories: taking narrative seriously in disinformation research". You can read it via Open Access here - academic.oup.com/ct/advance-a...

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jul 14

Maxim Alyukov and Alexandr Voronovici contributed to an Al-Jazeera English Opinion piece on Russia's influence of Western AI. aje.io/lv4v9l

Is Russia really ‘grooming’ Western AI?

The panic is there, but the evidence is thin – at best.

aje.io

New Russian network takes aim at fact checking

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jul 14

Maksim Markelov has provided comments on Russia's Global Fact-Checking Network for the RMIT Information Integrity Hub's newsletter, The Repost. You can read and subscribe to it here - mailchi.mp/rmit.edu.au/...

mailchi.mp

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jul 14

🚨New blog post! Emma Connolly (Research Fellow at UCL's Digital Speech Lab) explores why tracking mis and disnformation is challenging as it moves across platforms, and why it is vital its circulation is mitigated. You can read her blog on our website - www.mis-translating-deceit.com/project-blog...

Why is tracking disinformation so difficult—and what can we do about it? - (Mis)Translating Deceit

Emma Connolly explores why tracking mis and disnformation is challenging as it moves across platforms, and why it is vital its circulation is mitigated.

The Illiberal Public Sphere

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 18

Congratulations to @sabinamihelj.bsky.social and @vstetka.bsky.social for winning this prestigious award!

APSA & ICA Political Communication Divisions @polcomm.bsky.social · Jun 5

🎉 Excited to share the APSA Technology & Politics Section Award winners! 🏆

📚 Best Book

The Illiberal Public Sphere: Media in Polarized Societies
by @sabinamihelj.bsky.social & @vstetka.bsky.social. You can access it, it is in open access!

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

🧵

This book uncovers the media's role in global illiberalism through cutting-edge analysis of recent developments in Eastern Europe.

link.springer.com

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APSA & ICA Political Communication Divisions @polcomm.bsky.social · Jun 5

🎉 Excited to share the APSA Technology & Politics Section Award winners! 🏆

📚 Best Book

The Illiberal Public Sphere: Media in Polarized Societies
by @sabinamihelj.bsky.social & @vstetka.bsky.social. You can access it, it is in open access!

link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

🧵

The Illiberal Public Sphere

This book uncovers the media's role in global illiberalism through cutting-edge analysis of recent developments in Eastern Europe.

link.springer.com

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

8)Article has significant implications for how we understand disinformation, and how it is best combatted

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

7)Disinformation lifecycle can be viewed both as a sequence of developments from birth to death and rebirth, and as an atemporal system of interactions between factors endogenous within, and exogenous to, disinformation

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

6)Model allows us to show how disinformation claims do not travel as fixed objects but are discursively renegotiated as they journey, acquiring new, layered meanings at every point in the cycle

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

5) The lifecycle process follows a logic that is both simultaneous (the dialogue with counter-disinformation applies at all points) and linear (from allegation, to rebuttal, to counter-allegation)

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

4)Analysis of how COVID claims are authenticated across media genres; how they modulate to reflect shifting scientific consensus; how they are adapted for different linguistic audiences; hyperlink analysis detailing Russian/non-Russian collusion; their de-authentication by CDUs

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

3)We applied to this material a combination of qualitative close-reading methods and computer-driven network analysis tools in five replicable analytical steps visualised in diagrammatic form. Steps include …

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

2)Developed from multilingual Russian state COVID material identified by the EU’s CDU, this holistic model represents disinformation as a lifecycle wherein truth claims cross borders, moving in and out of counter-disinformation’s discursive sphere, gaining or losing credibility

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

1)Offers a new theorisation of disinformation accounting for how it is adapted across historical, linguistic and cultural contexts in line with its changing status as accusatory practice, and its dialogic interaction with counter-disinformation unit (CDU) practices

Disinformation as process: modeling the lifecycle of deceit

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

You can access the article via the link here - academic.oup.com/ct/advance-a...

Abstract. This article offers a new conceptual model of disinformation which accounts for the performative status of disinformation accusations, and the di

academic.oup.com

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

🚨New article written by Vera Tolz, @stevhutch.bsky.social, @vitalykaz.bsky.social, and Sofia Tipaldou, published in @icahdq.bsky.social - "Disinformation as Process: Modelling the Lifecycle of Disinformation". @uomsalc.bsky.social @sabinamihelj.bsky.social @neilsadler.bsky.social

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(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

8) Article has significant implications for how we understand disinformation, and how it is best combatted

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

7) Disinformation lifecycle can be viewed both as a sequence of developments from birth to death and rebirth, and as an atemporal system of interactions between factors endogenous within, and exogenous to, disinformation

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

6) Model allows us to show how disinformation claims do not travel as fixed objects but are discursively renegotiated as they journey, acquiring new, layered meanings at every point in the cycle

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

5) The lifecycle process follows a logic that is both simultaneous (the dialogue with counter-disinformation applies at all points) and linear (from allegation, to rebuttal, to counter-allegation)

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

4) Analysis of how COVID claims are authenticated across media genres; how they modulate to reflect shifting scientific consensus; how they are adapted for different linguistic audiences; hyperlink analysis detailing Russian/non-Russian collusion; their de-authentication by CDUs

(Mis)Translating Deceit (AHRC-funded project) @m-deceit.bsky.social · Jun 2

3) We applied to this material a combination of qualitative close-reading methods and computer-driven network analysis tools in five replicable analytical steps visualised in diagrammatic form. Steps include …