A picture is worth 1000 words. Great visuals can enhance, dramatize and even bend the narrative. From historical photos to modern-day digital images made of millions of pixels, images have always been instrumental in shaping our visual understanding of the world around us. As much as they have been instrumental in shaping reality, easy access to image manipulation has also resulted in wide spread misinformation. When anything can befaked, honest representation of reality in images has become a hard problem to crack. After multiple design explorations, I realized a need for a fundamental change in our interaction with images. The thesis resulted in building an alternate landscape for digital imagery called SHIFT, where images are connected entities that become an access point to multiple perspectives and alternate realities. It is not an attempt to challenge image manipulation technology but to use images as a means to develop a more informed understanding of the reality they represent.

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<p>Globally, the misinformation crisis exposed the need for cognitive researchers to</p> <p>investigate interventions that will mitigate the influence of misinformation within memory. One</p> <p>proposed solution is a retraction, whereby misinformation is indicated to be inaccurate. Previous</p> <p>studies have demonstrated that providing a retraction after misinformation may reduce references</p> <p>to misinformation. The continued reliance on misinformation even after it has been corrected is</p> <p>known as the continued influence effect (CIE). It is unclear whether repeated retractions and the</p> <p>spacing of repeated retractions can reduce the CIE. In the present study, two experiments were</p> <p>conducted to investigate whether spacing repeated retractions among news messages would be</p> <p>more effective at reducing the CIE compared to massing retractions. Both experiments exposed</p> <p>participants to a news story containing misinformation. Each experiment included four retraction</p> <p>conditions: no retraction, a single retraction, or repeated retractions that were spaced or massed.</p> <p>In Experiment 1, a single retraction reduced reliance on misinformation, but we did not observe</p> <p>an additional benefit of repeated retractions when there were two retractions. In Experiment 2, we</p> <p>provided participants with three repeated retractions. Using this stronger manipulation, repeated</p> <p>retractions reduced references to misinformation compared to a single retraction, but there was no</p> <p>benefit of spacing them out. Collectively, our results suggest that repeating corrective messages</p> <p>can help reduce references to misinformation, with no supporting evidence that it matters how</p> <p>the repetitions are organized.</p>

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The purpose of the current study was to examine how the media's positive and negative portrayals related to racism impact the viewer's attitudes regarding African Americans. Previous research has shown how misinformation in the media can implicitly affect one's level of racism. Previous research has also shown that gender and one's sociodemographic status can affect the way individuals perceive misinformation. This study aimed to address the relationship between misinformation depicting racist views directed toward African Americans and consumer's attitudes toward African Americans. It was hypothesized that exposure to misinformation will have a significant impact on participants' level of racism. A Series of linear regression analyses were conducted to determine how race, sex, social class, right-wing authoritarianism, religious involvement, political preference, and exposure to real and fake news combined predict the pro-black and anti-black views of participants. Results indicated that exposure to fake news did have a significant negative impact on a pro-black viewpoint. However, the results of the study indicated that real or fake news did not significantly impact anti-black views.

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Using an online charitable dictator game experiment (n=214), we explored how different, randomly assigned experimental treatments (social media posts) containing anti-climate-change sentiment (n=77, 36%), misinformation (n=74, 34.6%) and a control condition (n=63, 29.4%) impacted the real donation behaviour of pro-environmentalists to an environmental non-governmental organisation. Participants were recruited through social media (Facebook, Linked-In, and Reddit). We found that the treatments resulted in minimal differences to donation likelihood and amount. We used the same charitable dictator game experiment (n=56) to explore how these experimental treatments containing anti-climate-change sentiment (n=20, 35.7%), misinformation (n=26, 46.4%) and a control condition (n=10, 17.9%) impacted the social media response behaviour of pro-environments, as well as their real donation behaviour. We found that the treatments resulted in differences to reply frequency (p=0.02935) and minimal differences to reply tone (p=0.05698), while donation behaviour was unaffected. Donation behaviour did not stratify with demographic factors with the exception of geographic location (p=0.04825). These results suggest that the donation behaviour of pro-environmentalists is resistant to climate-change misinformation and anti-climate change opinions presented through social media, while these treatments may influence social media reply behaviour. Further research into the effect of this reply behaviour on other social media users and online spaces as well as whether these observations apply to the general population is necessary. These results also call into question the necessity of moderating misinformation and climate scepticism in online spaces, as there is some evidence that this content does not negatively affect prosocial behaviour, and instead may encourage cross-attitudinal discussion. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)

In this dissertation, I investigate the socioeconomic causes of consequences of ethnic conflict, and evaluate interventions that can reduce social animosity and misperceptions about outgroups. In particular, I focus on conflict between Hindus and Muslims in India. In recent years, online misinformation has emerged as a major contributor to misperceptions and animosity towards Muslims in India. In Chapter 1, I investigate if we can inoculate people against misinformation and mitigate its impact on people’s beliefs, attitudes, and behavior? We conduct a large field experiment in India with an intervention providing weekly digests containing a compilation of fact-checks of viral misinformation. In these digests, we also incorporate narrative explainers to give details and context of issues that are politically salient and consistent target of false stories. Specifically, we address misperceptions about Muslims increasingly fuelled by online misinformation. We find that familiarity with fact-checks increases people’s ability to correctly identify misinformation by eleven percentage points. However, belief in true news also decreases by four percentage points. We estimate a structural model to disentangle the two mechanisms of impact—truth discernment, which is the ability to correctly distinguish between false and true news; and skepticism, which changes the overall credulity for both false and true news. The impact is driven by an increase in both truth discernment and skepticism. Whereas skepticism increases immediately, it takes several weeks to become better at discerning truth. Finally, our intervention reduces misperceptions about Muslims, as well as leads to changes in policy attitudes and behavior. Treated individuals are less likely to support discriminatory policies and are more likely to pay for efforts to counter the harassment of inter-faith couples. In Chapter 2, I investigate the economic impacts of conflict and social animus by estimating the causal impact of ethnic violence on economic growth in India. For causal identification, I use shift-share instruments to isolate exogenous national shocks to violence from endogenous local shocks. On average, a riot reduces state GDP growth rate by 0.14 percentage points. To investigate mechanism, I estimate the dynamics of impact using the synthetic control method and compare it to theoretical predictions from a shock to social capital versus physical capital. This shows that the negative impact of violence is likely driven by a negative shock to social capital from higher animosity and discrimination among communities exposed to violence. This impact of violence on growth creates a vicious cycle when one also considers the effect in the opposite direction – lower growth leading to more violence. The multiplier due to this vicious cycle magnifies the impact of external growth shocks by 40 percent in equilibrium. Overall, the results highlight the importance of strong institutions to manage conflict for the long-term prosperity of societies. In Chapter 3, I investigate the historical origins of ethnic violence in India by comparing violence in regions that were directly ruled by British, versus those that were indirectly ruled through native kings who had significant autonomy. I find that regions that are directly ruled have more violence in post-independence period. I then use direct British rule as an instrument for ethnic violence to estimate the impact of violence and residential segregation.