Combatting the Evolving Forms of Disinformation in our World Today with Darren Linvill

Air Dates: October 21-27, 2024

Since 2016, the presence of foreign disinformation in American politics—and especially on our social media platforms—has been well documented. But Darren Linvill says different state-actors—like Russia and China—behave differently online, depending on their goals.

Darren Linvill is a professor of communication whose research explores social media disinformation and its influence on civil discourse (in and out of the classroom). He became a faculty member at Clemson after earning degrees from Wake Forest and Clemson and started studying social media in 2010. After becoming an associate professor in 2017, he delved deeper into the truth or falsity of online messaging and its effects. As a sought-after media expert, he’s contributed to many articles and broadcasts by outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Bloomberg, Rolling Stone, Inside Higher Ed, The State, CNN, NPR, ABC, NBC, WFAE and others.

On this episode of “Story in the Public Square,” Linvill discusses his study of narrative laundering, a form of disinformation where a piece of a story or a narrative is planted and is shared widely in a way that masks its origin and enters the common discourse.  He says “the Russians are the original masters of this,” adding, “new technology, and especially social media, has made tactics that, [once] took weeks, months, and years into things that can happen in just days.”  Linvill adds the Iranians and the Chinese have also engaged in narrative laundering in recent years and warns the November 2024 election in the United States and remain a focus of these campaigns, in addition to state control of the information and stories their own citizens have access to.

“Story in the Public Square” broadcasts each week on public television stations across the United States. In Rhode Island and southeastern New England, the show is broadcast on Rhode Island PBS on Sundays at 11:00 a.m. and is rebroadcast Thursdays at 7:30 p.m. Check your local public television listings for air times near you! An audio version of the program airs Saturdays at 8:30 a.m. and 7:30 p.m. ET and Sundays at 4:30 a.m. ET on SiriusXM’s popular P.O.T.U.S. (Politics of the United States), channel 124. “Story in the Public Square” is a project of the Pell Center at Salve Regina University. The initiative aims to study, celebrate and tell stories that matter.