Gender as a central site of inquiry within mis- and disinformation studies

ABSTRACT

Mis- and disinformation have become a central focus within academic research across disciplines, with substantial funding and resources being leveraged to study so-called “information disorder” (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). Yet, the majority of this research attends to problematic information within majoritarian issues, focusing (with good cause) on misinformation around COVID-19 and disinformation campaigns that seek to undermine global elections and trust in government. We argue that misinformation research must expand beyond its current subject focus, and center feminist and critical frameworks that more accurately capture why problematic information targets marginalized populations, the underlying power structures that inform the saliency of disinformation campaigns, and the disproportionate impact misinformation has on minoritized communities— both as targets and subjects of weaponized information. In doing so, gender must be a central site of study within misinformation studies.

KEYWORDS:

• Misinformation
• disinformation
• gender
• feminist methodology
• theory

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; Center for an Informed Public, University of Washington.

Notes on contributors

Taylor Agajanian

Taylor Agajanian is a researcher and project manager at the Center for an Informed Public. A recipient of the UW iSchool Dean’s Fellowship, she earned her Masters of Library and Information Science in the summer of 2022. Her research is situated in the mis- and disinformation space and focuses on gendered and other identity-based digital harms through a feminist lens as well as rapid response frameworks, most recently on The Virality Project and the Election Integrity Partnership.

Rachel E. Moran

Rachel E. Moran is a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for an Informed Public at the University of Washington. Moran received her doctoral degree in 2020 from the Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism at the University of Southern California. Her research explores the role of trust in digital information environments and is particularly concerned with how trust is implicated in the spread of misinformation and disinformation.