CMN 596 Final Exam Review Sheet

Affordance Theory

A concept that explains how an object's properties in the environment determine the potential actions an individual can take with that object.

Attention Economy

Describes conditions where human attention is a scarce and valuable resource, actively competed for by businesses, marketers, and content creators to drive engagement and revenue.

Social Media Algorithms

Algorithms determine the types of content we see on social media and other digital platforms; designed to keep us engaged and personalize content for individuals.

Bots

Pieces of software that create content on social media and interact with people, they inflate followers, spread propaganda, influence political discourse, and engage in trolling.

Index Content

The process of cataloging website results on a search engine.

Rank Content

Ranking of the content in a search engine (closer to the top is more applicable).

Bent Testimony

We interpret results on Google differently from what Google says they’re doing, a situation where information presented as factual is unreliable or misleading.

Section 230 of the Communication Decency Act

It states that online platforms are not treated as the publishers or speakers of content provided by other users.

Filter Bubbles

Your own bubble of information online is decided by what apps you use (personal algorithm).

Echo Chambers

An environment in which someone encounters beliefs that reinforce their preexisting beliefs by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal.

Keyword Signaling

Using specific keywords in your content to indicate the subject matter and intent of your page to search engines.

Data Voids

Search terms without much information.

Weaponized Communication

The deliberate use of communication, whether verbal, written, or through other channels, to cause harm or achieve a specific malicious outcome.

Ron Deibert’s: Surveillance Capitalism

Consumers get services (mostly free) while industries monitor users’ behavior to tailor advertisements to them.

Ron Deibert’s: Technological Addiction

Social media is designed as addiction machines, expressly programmed to draw upon our emotions.

Pavement Radio

An unofficial and democratic form of oral communication, especially in African contexts, where people share information and discuss current events in public.

Clickbait

Exaggerated headlines and distorted stories are designed to get readers' attention and digital clicks.

State Capture

A situation where private individuals or groups control government decision-making to benefit themselves, often through corrupt relationships.

White Monopoly Capital

A real term in South Africa referring to the historic and ongoing concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a white elite.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Focuses on analyzing and processing existing data to make predictions or decisions.

Generative Artificial Intelligence (GenAI)

Focuses on creating new content, like text, images, or music, based on learned patterns in data.

Deepfakes

Highly realistic and difficult-to-detect digital manipulations of audio or video produced with AI.

Liar’s Dividend

The benefit received by those spreading fake information as a consequence of the environment in which there is a great deal of fake information.

Whats the difference between deepfakes and cheapfakes

deepfake- made by AI cheapfake- Made by a human

Demand-Side Interventions for addressing problematic info

Focus on empowering individuals and communities to recognize and resist problematic information.

Supply-Side Interventions

Target the sources and dissemination channels of problematic information.

Media Literacy

The ability to access, analyze, evaluate, create, and act using all forms of communication.

Fact-Checking

The process of verifying the accuracy, reliability, and truthfulness of factual claims made in media and other information sources.

Missing Context

Misrepresentation and missing context or isolation.

Deceptive edit

Omission and splicing of media to change the intent.

Malicious Transformation

Altering a video with AI or editing to deceive the viewer

Boomerang Effect

When media coverage, instead of achieving the desired outcome, produces reactions that are the opposite of what was intended.

Illusory Truth Effect

Where repeated exposure to a statement, whether true or false, increases the perceived truth of that statement.

Deplatforming

The process of removing or restricting an individual, organization, or group's access to online platforms.

Demonetization

The process of removing monetization features such as advertising revenue or sponsorship opportunities.

Algorithmic Suppression

The manipulation of algorithms to reduce the visibility or reach of certain content, accounts, or users.

limitation of deplatforming: diversification

Signposting : Keywords that alert the audience to a change in subject

limitation of deplatforming: Re-platforming

Minion Accounts: associated with the de-platformed ‘leader’ and continue to perform their mission, not under their personal direction or control

limitation of deplatforming: Amplification

The Strisand Effect: Strisand tried to get a picture of her house taken off the internet but by causing a commotion to get it taken down more and more people saw it

limitation of deplatforming: Blowback

The Boomerang Effect: when media coverage, instead of achieving the desired outcome, produces reactions that are the opposite of what was intended

Three part theory of Sociotechnical media effects

Actors, patterns, and affordances

What was the issue in the Gonzales vs. google supreme court case?

The family argued that YouTube’s recommendation algorithm contributed to the spread of terrorist propaganda and violated the anti-terrorism act

What is the difference between self-selected personalization and pre-selected personalization?

Self-selected personalization is where the user chooses what they see by following and blocking certain people, pre-selected is where what someone sees is determined by algorithms without their direct input

What are the affordances of digital advertising ecosystems that allow them to be used for the targeting and spread of problematic information?

Automation, Targeting, Optimization, Amplification

Ron Deibert’s: Attention economy

attention-grabbing algorithms underlying social media that aim to sow confusion, ignorance, prejudice, and chaos, thereby facilitating manipulation and undermining accountability

Explain the Bell-Potinger / Gupta Family scandal

The Gupta family was accused of state capture.They hired the Bell-Pottinger PR team, who tried to promote “white monopoly capital” to turn public attention away. Backfired and Bell-Pottinger was exposed for their part and went bankrupt from losing clients

Explain how an understanding of both the sociopolitical environment and the technical affordances are necessary for understanding the spread of disinformation, conspiracy, and rumor in India.

The sociopolitical environment in India: Deep stories, child kidnappers, religious tensions, Muslim sentiment, caste system. Technical affordances are the affordances on Whatsapp: what started the rumors, It's easy to use, can have large groups, and is easy to forward messages. The technical affordances explain how false information spreads. The sociopolitical context explains why people believe and share 

What do Chesney and Citron suggest are the positive applications of generative AI?

Education, Art, Autonomy

What do Chesney and Citron argue are the negative applications of generative AI?

Distortion of democratic discourse, manipulation of elections, eroding trust in institutions, exacerbating social divisions, undermining public safety, diplomacy, and journalism, and jeopardizing national security

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: Technological solution

developing tools to detect and mitigate misinformation generated by AI

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: legal banning

outright bans on certain uses of deepfakes like political ads, impersonation or revenge porn

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: legal civil liability

allowing individuals harmed by deepfakes to sue the creators

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: legal criminal liability

creating and applying criminal laws to penalize the malicious creation and distribution of deepfakes.

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: administrative agencies

agencies develop rules or issue penalties for the harmful use of deepfakes

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: coercive solutions

government-driven actions like sanctions, takedown mandates, or pressuring platforms to police content more aggressively

Chesney and Citron Strategy for addressing deepfakes: market solutions

relying on platforms, advertisers and consumers to regulate harmful deepfakes

Benefits and limitations of media literacy

Benefits: Empowers people, Promotes critical thinking, Counters misinformation 

Limitations: Digital divide, Evolving media landscape, Time and resource constraints

What are some of the benefits and limitations of fact-checking?

Benefits: promotes accuracy and accountability, builds trust in media and institutions, empowers citizens

Limitations: overlapping categories, complicated motivations, the powerlessness of facts, the complexity of digital culture, and the dangers of amplification 

What does Phillips describe as the “ecological approach” to addressing problematic information?

to addressing problematic information as a shift away from focusing on isolated falsehoods or individual bad actors, and instead understanding how systems, actions, and institutions interact to allow polluted information to spread