Visit our Digital Wall of Iconographics: “Strategies for Prevention, Deterrence, or Detection of Mis-/Disinformation” In Winter 2020 academic term, graduate students in the “Misinformation and Viral Deception” course at FIMS, Western University conducted Case Studies about events that involved elements of deception. Generalizing from particular Case Study circumstances to broader types of information manipulation (online Read More …
Author: Rubin, Victoria
Delellis and Rubin Publish a Chapter in a New Book on “Fake News”
A new book on ‘fake news’ is out and we contributed a chapter to it! “Navigating Fake News, Alternative Facts, and Misinformation in a Post-Truth World”, edited by Kimiz Dalkir & Rebecca Katz (McGill University, Canada), is a collection of innovative research on human and automated methods to deter the spread of misinformation online, such Read More …
Dr. Rubin Gives Three-Minute R&D Talk
In just a few words, we compute natural language patterns to identify varieties of fakes in online news. Is 3 minutes enough time to talk about it? Hardly, but you get a better sense of it: The 3-minute format was an imposed requirement by the Organizers of the 3MTalks. In practice, it’s either a Read More …
Guest Talk by Doug Williams, LPL Cataloguer
On Friday, 6 December 2019, a group of MLIS students and I welcomed an invited speaker in our last class of Fall 2019 academic term. Doug Williams, Cataloguer at the London Public Libraries (LPL) Central Branch, agreed to come to Western University and give us a talk about his work from the point of view Read More …
Rubin Interviewed on Super Awesome Science Show, hosted by Global News
A timely interview about how to spot “fakes” in the news automatically. The podcast is hosted by the Global News. The host, Jason Tetro, a Visiting Scientist at the University of Guelph was a great fun to talk to! Thank you, Jason, for the invitation. Listen to the 30-minute podcast via https://globalnews.ca/author/super-awesome-science-show/ Further details about Read More …
FIMS, Western University, Is Looking to Hire 2 New Faculty
“Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) is seeking outstanding candidates for two probationary (Tenure-Track) appointments effective July 1, 2020. The Faculty of Information and Media Studies (FIMS) at Western University invites applications for 2 probationary (tenure-track) appointments at the rank of Assistant Professor in the areas of (1) digital media theory and practice and Read More …
Thank You to Those Who Came for a Visit at FIMS, Western
On Saturday, September 14, 2019 FIMS at Western participated first time in the “Doors Open London” event. Many thanks to the community members who came out and had a chat with us! The Dean’s Office count tells us we had over 150 people that stopped by that afternoon. Very exciting! I’d also like to personally thank Read More …
Disinformation & Misinformation Triangle Published in Journal of Documentation
The Disinformation and misinformation triangle (Rubin, 2019) is a conceptual model for ‘fake news’ epidemic, causal factors and interventions. Author’s Keywords: disinformation, misinformation, deception; Internet, newspapers, fake news; machine learning, natural language processing; automated deception detection, automated satire detection, automated clickbait detection. Suggested citation: Rubin, V. (2019), “Disinformation and misinformation triangle”, Journal of Documentation, Vol. Read More …
LiT.RL Team Enters a Canada-wide 1 Million Dollar Competition to Identify False Claims
What are we working on now? What’s the next step? With the support and encouragement from the FIMS Dean’s Office, our LiT.RL team has recently entered an AI competition to automate the fact-checking process by flagging whether a claim is true, false, or partly true. The Schulich’s Leaders Prize, “Fact or Fake News?” is run Read More …
Join Us @Western for “Doors Open London” | Try Our News Verification Browser | Talk to Researchers
On Saturday, September 14, many units on campus will be participating in a London event called “Doors Open London”, where and in the city open our doors to the public. Some of you and your families may want to be part of the FIMS events. If so, you could join us for our Library, Studio, Read More …