Skip to main content
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
Sections
  • All News
  • Arts & Culture
  • Business & Economy
  • Campus & Community
  • Health & Society
  • Media, Law & Policy
  • STEM
  • Veterans
  • University Statements
  • Syracuse University Impact
  • |
  • The Peel
  • Athletics
  • Home
  • About
  • Faculty Experts
  • For The Media
  • ’Cuse Conversations Podcast
  • Topics
    • Alumni
    • Events
    • Faculty
    • Students
    • All Topics
  • Contact
  • Submit
STEM

iSchool Researchers to Study Election-Related Misinformation on WhatsApp

Monday, November 19, 2018, By J.D. Ross
Share
facultyResearch and CreativeSchool of Information Studiessocial media
two women standing in front of logo

Postdoctoral researcher Patricia Rossini (left) and Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley will study election related misinformation shared on WhatsApp.

A pair of researchers from the Center for Computational and Data Science (CCDS) at the School of Information Studies (iSchool) have received a research award from the Facebook-owned WhatsApp messaging service to study the issues of misinformation transmitted over the platform.

Postdoctoral researcher Patricia Rossini and Professor Jennifer Stromer-Galley were selected to examine election related misinformation, specifically focusing on information sharing, political engagemen, and discussion in the 2018 Brazilian elections. Rossini serves as principal investigator on the award.

WhatsApp can be a powerful medium for political discourse and engagement. But at the same time, it can also be misused to share political information that is inaccurate or inflammatory. The company is interested in understanding this space both from the perspective of political actors and voters as well as understanding how they might take steps to prevent the misuse of the platform in electoral processes.

The goal of the WhatsApp Misinformation and Social Science Research Awards is to facilitate high quality, external research around the topics of misinformation by academics and experts who are in the countries where WhatsApp is frequently used and where there is relatively limited research on the topic.

WhatsApp received nearly 600 proposals, and selected 20 research teams to examine issues that include problematic content; digital literacy and misinformation; election-related misinformation; and network effects and virality. Award recipients span the globe, including Brazil, India, Indonesia, Israel, Mexico, Netherlands, Nigeria, Singapore, Spain, the United Kingdom and the United States.

All of the studies funded by WhatsApp will comply with the ethics and academic review processes set forth by the institutions receiving the awards, and will not involve the use of any WhatsApp user data.

Joining the CCDS researchers on this project are two academics from Brazil’s Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Erica Anita Baptista and Vanessa Veiga de Oliveira.

The research team’s mixed methods study aims to understand two interconnected issues. First being the potential impact of the use of WhatsApp by political campaigns and the ways users experience the platform and receive political information. Second, the extent to which WhatsApp users actively engage and share content related to the elections within their peer groups and how they evaluate the credibility and the reliability of political information circulating through the platform.

“We want to figure out the different and creative ways that people are using WhatsApp for political activities, both for sharing of news and information around political issues as well as discussion of these topics,” says Rossini. “We’ve conducted quite a bit of social media research, but up to this point that research has only looked at public sites like Facebook and Twitter, where a user’s audience is mostly public.”

With WhatsApp, users have a better understanding of their audience and who they are messaging and sharing information with.

“It’s a private channel, a different kind of social media where most users know exactly who their audience is,” Rossini explains. “And we think that people will behave differently in these private spaces. We can expect that people might feel more comfortable talking with an audience that they are familiar with, or who they share the same views with.”

Rossini and her team are also interested in how WhatsApp users put the information they receive via the platform into context.

“Users on WhatsApp don’t tend to share a lot of links, so there’s very little context that comes when you receive a message,” she says. “We would like to find out how users understand what they receive, how they determine whether to trust the sender of the information, and what motivates them to forward information to other individuals or groups.”

“Our end goal is to be able to better understand how people use WhatsApp for political purposes, and then to help WhatsApp better understand the affordances these users need to better use the platform, as well as to understand the extent to which users engage with misinformation,” says Rossini.

“WhatsApp is looking forward to working with the research team from the iSchool and UFMG,” says Mrinalini Rao, lead researcher on the WhatsApp Research Team. “The consequences of misinformation are real and we know this is a long term challenge that requires action from civil society, government, and technology companies. The independent research conducted by these iSchool and UFMG faculty members will make a meaningful contribution to how we build WhatsApp for the years to come.”

  • Author

J.D. Ross

  • Recent
  • Syracuse University 2025-26 Budget to Include Significant Expansion of Student Financial Aid
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By News Staff
  • Light Work Opens New Exhibitions
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By News Staff
  • Registration Open for Sports, Entertainment and Innovation Conference July 8-10 in Las Vegas  
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By Matt Michael
  • University’s Dynamic Sustainability Lab and Ireland’s BiOrbic Sign MOU to Advance Markets for the Biobased Economy
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By News Staff
  • Engaged Humanities Network Community Showcase Spotlights Collaborative Work
    Wednesday, May 21, 2025, By Dan Bernardi

More In STEM

University’s Dynamic Sustainability Lab and Ireland’s BiOrbic Sign MOU to Advance Markets for the Biobased Economy

This month at the All Island Bioeconomy Summit held in Co. Meath, Ireland, it was announced that BiOrbic, Research Ireland Centre for Bioeconomy, comprising 12 leading Irish research universities in Ireland, signed a joint memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the Dynamic Sustainability…

Professor Bing Dong Named as the Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

The College of Engineering and Computer Science has named Bing Dong as the Traugott Professor of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. This endowed professorship is made possible by a 1998 gift from the late Fritz Traugott H’98 and his wife, Frances….

Physics Professor Honored for Efforts to Improve Learning, Retention

The Department of Physics in the College of Arts and Sciences (A&S) has made some big changes lately. The department just added an astronomy major approved by New York State and recently overhauled the undergraduate curriculum to replace traditional labs with innovative…

ECS Team Takes First Place in American Society of Civil Engineers Competition

Civil and environmental engineering student teams participated in the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Sustainable Solutions and Steel Bridge competitions during the 2025 Upstate New York-Canada Student Symposium, winning first place in the Sustainable Solutions competition. The symposium was…

Chloe Britton Naime Committed to Advocating for Improved Outcomes for Neurodivergent Individuals

Chloe Britton Naime ’25 is about to complete a challenging and rare dual major program in both mechanical engineering from the College of Engineering and Computer Science and neuroscience from the College of Arts and Sciences. Even more impressive? Britton…

Subscribe to SU Today

If you need help with your subscription, contact sunews@syr.edu.

Connect With Us

  • X
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
Social Media Directory

For the Media

Find an Expert Follow @SyracuseUNews
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • Youtube
  • LinkedIn
  • @SyracuseU
  • @SyracuseUNews
  • Social Media Directory
  • Accessibility
  • Privacy
  • Campus Status
  • Syracuse.edu
© 2025 Syracuse University News. All Rights Reserved.