31 GENIUS INTERVIEW Francesca Tripodi
DR FRANCESCA TRIPODI: HOWWE GET INFORMATION IS VERY FLAWED Is online and algorithm-driven news distorting our ability to see the world accurately? Dr Francesca Tripodi is researching it in the American south
FEED: Can you start by telling us about your work?
ociologist and media scholar Dr Francesca
Dr Francesca Tripodi: I study inequality in participatory media spaces. My dissertation looked at some discrimination that was happening on Wikipedia (“Non- notable? Deletion, Devaluation, and Discrimination on Wikipedia”, American Journal of Sociology ) and also in a now defunct app called Yik Yak (“What Colleges Might Lose by Banning Yik Yak”, The Chronicle of Higher Education ). After finishing my doctorate in sociology I was fortunate to receive a postdoctoral fellowship with Data & Society for the past year. FEED: And what has been your role at Data & Society? FT: I have been part of the Media Manipulation Initiative team. We’re looking at a wide variety of questions – from something as urgent as concerted disinformation attacks to generally thinking about how we find information we can trust.
Tripodi has been studying how the current trends in online and algorithm-driven news are magnifying inequality and distorting our ability to accurately assess our world. Tripodi is a postdoctoral scholar interact with media and the role that community plays in deciding what is ‘real’ news. Her Data & Society report, “Searching for Alternative Facts” was published in May and is available for download (https:// datasociety.net/output/searching- for-alternative-facts). Data & Society is a non-profit think tank that studies how Big Data impacts society on many different levels. Based in New York, the organisation tries to make sense of the double-edge sword that is transformative digital technology. at Data & Society where she studies how partisan groups
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