Disinformation Campaigns and Narratives during the European Elections 2024

Abstract

During the time of crises, elections or breaking news, the attention along with the online activity increase, attracting actors attempting to manipulate public opinion. Coordinated actions and unified strategies emerge, making the (dis)information operations easier to observe. This panel aims to provide a general overview of the disinformation campaigns and narratives detected during the European Elections in 2024 in multiple EU countries. Drawing upon available resources and datasets particularly the European Digital Media Observatory's (EDMO) fact-checking articles this panel will study the false stories circulated online (i.e., social media, internet domains) and published by fact-checking organisations during the pre-electoral and post-electoral period. We present studies with both qualitative and quantitative analyses, employing diverse methods and frameworks to establish common core methodology across EDMO hubs, scholars and fact-checking organisations. The goal is to identify patterns, detect coordinated networks, classify topic-related narratives, and study their impact on voting behavior through the analysis of disinformation campaigns and narratives. This panel addresses the session's overarching theme by focusing on a critical aspect of electoral politics, delving into the intricate dynamics of disinformation and its implications for public opinion and voting behavior. We believe our work will contribute meaningfully to the comparative analyses encouraged by the session, shedding light on the multifaceted nature of disinformation campaigns within the larger landscape of public opinion and voting behavior research.

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