The Department of Communication and Media at the University of Liverpool has a long-standing record of leading international research projects addressing social, political and cultural impacts of digital media and leveraging the results to drive policy and innovation. Recently, it has hosted projects developing new methodologies for enhancing citizens’ data literacies (https://www.nuffieldfoundation.org/project/me-and-my-big-data-developing-citizens-data-literacy) and teach citizens how to become their own fact-checkers through human-computer interaction (https://fakenewsimmunity.liverpool.ac.uk/). The results are informing agendas of the UK Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) where Prof. Yates is joint chair of the Research Working group on Digital Inclusion and Skills.
The Department is thus uniquely equipped to identify biases in the process of production and consumption of fact-checks, as well as investigate trust issues emerging from communication gatekeepers’ interaction with digital tools.
