Disinformation as a context-bound phenomenon: toward a conceptual clarification integrating actors, intentions and techniques of creation and dissemination

Abstract
Although disinformation has become a popular concept, we lack an integrative conceptualization that connects the actors, intentions and techniques underlying deceptive information. In this article, we conceptualize disinformation as a context-bound deliberate act for which actors covertly deceive recipients by de-contextualizing, manipulating or fabricating information to maximize utility with the (targeted) outcome of misleading recipients. This conceptualization embeds fragmented accounts of disinformation in a networked and participatory information logic, and offers a comprehensive account of the conditions under which different actors may decide to deceive, how they deceive, and what they aim to achieve by deceiving recipients. Our conceptualization may inform (machine-learning) techniques to detect disinformation and interventions that aim to trigger suspicion by breaking through the truth-default state.

Disinformation as a context-bound phenomenon: toward a conceptual clarification integrating actors, intentions and techniques of creation and dissemination | Communication Theory | Oxford Academic
https://academic.oup.com/ct/article/33/1/1/6759692

Developing a Critical Response to Ad Hominem Attacks Against Climate Science

Ad hominem attacks against climate scientists—including personal attacks questioning an individual’s character, competence, or motives—remain the most common type of contrarian strategy found in contemporary climate debates. Despite their pervasiveness, climate-related ad hominem argumentation remains understudied by scholars in both the humanities and social sciences. This study adapts Douglas Walton’s critical framework for identifying ad hominem attacks against the climate community and evaluating them for rhetorical errors by analyzing developing critical responses. This article offers guidance for future inoculation interventions, including media literacy campaigns that raise awareness and understanding of ad hominem attacks used by contrarian organizations in misinformation campaigns targeting climate science.

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/00027642241240352

TUHO: It is a view shared by a number of far-right MEPs, including Romania’s Cristian Terhes who earlier this year told the European Parliament in a debate on climate change that the world is witnessing “the imposition of a utopian, criminal ideology, which requires us to totally destroy our way of life in the name of madness: zero-carbon emissions.”

Terhes is also an anti-vaxxer and is behind the International Covid Summit, whose opening anthem calls on parents to shield their children from perceived tyrannies. “We’ll be free until the day we die” are among the anthem’s lyrics.

These posts are part of a database set up by Lighthouse Reports and Bellingcat to explore the explosion of QAnon conspiracy myths in Europe across more than 2,000 Telegram channels in nine countries.

Timing, network, vocab
The first three ingredients of this recipe borrow some of the marketing industry strategies: timing, networks, and vocabulary. However, in this case the aim is to spread political views not sell products.

As people’s rage and frustration, fed by conspiracy theories related to Covid and Ukraine, died down, Telegram users following QAnon channels were primed for a new target: climate denialism.

According to Lighthouse analysis, until late 2022 climate mentions were quite limited in the database compared to other topics. The Oxford event took place on 18 February 2023 and posts on climate-related issues warning about a “climate lockdown” or against “15-minute cities” had been spreading since March 2022. They only gained wider popularity around November of the same year when the support by a few key channels in the QAnon world prompted a surge in traffic and attention.

How QAnon pushed climate-denialism into European mainstream
https://euobserver.com/investigations/arfcfcce97

Neco proti? https://medium.seznam.cz/clanek/pavel-silhan-green-deal-je-zrejme-nesmysl-otepluje-planetu-rikaji-vedci-71203?#source=hp&seq_no=3&dop_ab_variant=0&dop_source_zone_name=blogy.sznhp.box&dop_vert_ab=&dop_vert_id=

TUHO: kvalita

#Great reset #conspiracy theory a popirani klimaticke zmeny

ISD has tracked the spread of conspiracy theories regarding the Great Reset from the beginning. After the WEF initiative was launched on 3 June 2020, the first video describing the call-to-action as a “New World Order power grab” was posted four days later on alt-tech video platform Bitchute. The video has since been viewed over 100,000 times. Towards the end of June, an op-ed written by Justin Hawkins of the Heartland Institute, a leading climate change-denying think tank, was published on Fox News, in which he wrote the Great Reset’s “socialist outline is clear: destroy the global capitalist economy and reform the Western world.”

The ‘Great Reset’ - ISD
https://www.isdglobal.org/explainers/the-great-reset/

Kind of related. Proc konspiracni teorie frci an TikToku

Why TikTok Is Becoming A Conspiracy Playground
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X66MGRN364c

TUHO: While most climate scientists agreed that human-caused climate change was a real issue that would require action, a small group argued there was no cause for alarm. The plan was to pay these sceptics to give speeches or write op-eds - about $1,500 (£1,250) per article - and to arrange media tours so they could appear on local TV and radio stations

TUHO:

Though few outside the PR industry might have heard of E Bruce Harrison or the eponymous company he had run since 1973, he had a string of campaigns for some of the US's biggest polluters under his belt.
He had worked for the chemical industry discrediting research on the toxicity of pesticides; for the tobacco industry, and had recently run a campaign against tougher emissions standards for the big car makers. Harrison had built a firm that was considered one of the very best.
Media historian Melissa Aronczyk, who interviewed Harrison before he died in 2021, says he was a strategic linchpin for his clients, ensuring everyone was on the same page.
"He was a master at what he did," she says.