1st Edition
The Routledge Handbook of Discourse and Disinformation
This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of research into discourses of disinformation, misinformation, post-truth, alternative facts, hate speech, conspiracy theories, and "fake news".
Divided into two sections, it provides a detailed look at the methodological challenges and approaches for studying disinformation, along with a wide range of case studies covering everything from climate change denial to COVID-19 conspiracies. The studies address how discourses of disinformation are constructed and developed, what rhetorical and persuasive strategies they employ, how disinformation can be discerned from real news, and what steps we might take in order to create a more trustworthy news environment.
Authored by leading experts from around the world, and showcasing the most up-to-date methodological approaches to the topic, the volume makes a significant contribution to current linguistic research on politics, and is an essential guide to the discourses of disinformation for advanced students and researchers of English language studies, linguistics, and media and communication studies.
1 The various dimensions of disinformation: an introduction
Stefania M. Maci, Massimiliano Demata, Philip Seargeant, and Mark McGlashan
PART I
Genres and methodologies
2 The expression of bias in (online) newspaper headlines
Michele Sala
3 Critical discourse analysis approaches to investigating fake news and disinformation
Farah Sabbah
4 Introducing digital source criticism: a method for tackling fake news and disinformation
Bente Kalsnes
5 A model for understanding and assessing semi-fake scientific news reporting
Paola Catenaccio
6 Misinformation detection in news text: automatic methods and data limitations
Fatemeh Torabi Asr, Mehrdad Mokhtari, and Maite Taboada
7 Fakespeak in 280 characters: exploring the language of disinformation on Twitter through a comparative corpus-based approach
Sylvia Jaworska
8 Debunking fake news through the multimodal composition of Internet memes
Pietro Luigi Iaia
9 “It’s never about #ProLife, it’s about punishment, hate, and religious repression”. Polarising discourses and disinformation in the abortion debate on Twitter
Stefania M. Maci and Simone Abbiati
10 Investigating the language of fake news across cultures
Nele Põldvere, Elizaveta Kibisova, and Silje Susanne Alvestad
PART II
Case studies
A. Politics
11 Disinformation and immigration discourses
Charlotte Taylor
12 Brexit and disinformation
Tamsin Parnell
13 New dogs, old tricks. A corpus-assisted study of the “art” of delegitimisation in modern spoken political discourse
Alison Duguid and Alan Partington
14 The military’s approach to the information environment
Michelangelo Conoscenti
15 Attitudes about propaganda and disinformation: identifying discursive personae in YouTube comment sections Olivia Inwood and Michele Zappavigna
16 Citizens’ perspectives on the news media and democracy: a citizens’ panel case study from Wales
Philip Seargeant, Donna Smith, and Dylan Moore
B. Society
17 (Dis)information and ethical guidelines: a critical discourse analysis of news reporting on violence against women Sergio Maruenda-Bataller
18 Online gendered and sexualised disinformation against women in politics
Eleonora Esposito
19 The rainbow conspiracy: a corpus-based social media analysis ofanti-LGBTIQ+ rhetoric in digital landscapes
Balirano and Bronwen Hughes
20 The discourses of climate change denialism across conspiracy and pseudoscience websites
Isobelle Clarke
21 Reframings of fake in art discourse
Chiara Degano
C. Medical discourses
22 Exploring health-related misinformation, disinformation, and “fake news”
Roxanne H. Padley
23 The COVID-19 infodemic on Twitter: dialogic contraction within the echo chambers
Marina Bondi and Leonardo Sanna
24 COVID-19 parody fake voice messages on WhatsApp
Dennis Chau and Carmen Lee
25 The impact of COVID-19 reports on multicultural young people’s social and psychological well-being: novel experiential metaphors in an ELF-mediated debate on fake news
Maria Grazia Guido
26 Mapping polylogical discourse to understand (dis)information negotiation: the case of the UK events research programme
Elena Musi, Kay L. O’Halloran, Elinor Carmi, Michael Humann, Minhao Jin, Simeon Yates, and Gautam Pal
Biography
Stefania M. Maci is Full Professor of English Language at the University of Bergamo, where she is the coordinator of the MA in Digital Humanities and Director of the Research Centre on Specialised Language. Her research is focussed on the study of the English language in academic and professional contexts.
Massimiliano Demata is Associate Professor of English Linguistics at the University of Turin. He has published monographs, papers, and book chapters on British and US political discourse, nationalism and discourse, populism, computer-mediated communication, and climate change refugees.
Mark McGlashan is Senior Lecturer in English Language at the Birmingham Institute of Media and English, Birmingham City University. Mark’s research interests predominantly centre on the synthesis and application of methods from corpus linguistics and (critical) discourse studies to study a wide range of social issues, and his recent work has focussed on relationships between language and abuse. Mark is co-editor (with Professor John Mercer) of Toxic Masculinity: Men, Meaning and Digital Media (Routledge, 2023).
Philip Seargeant is Senior Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at the Open University, where he teaches and researches language and communication with a political focus on political discourse. His recent books include The Art of Political Storytelling, Political Activism in the Linguistic Landscape, and Crisis Leadership: Boris Johnson and Political Persuasion during the Covid Pandemic.
