Dr Judith Sijstermans, Dr Philippe Beauregard, Dr Digdem Soyaltin Colella, and Dr Bennett Collins have received funding from the Scottish Council on Global Affairs for a new project on The State of Misinformation and Disinformation in Scotland.
Coming from different subject expertise in politics (conspiracy and populism, corruption, political psychology of leaders, climate and environmental politics) at the University of Aberdeen, the four of us are seeing the spread of false information - whether unintentional (misinformation) and intentional (disinformation) - disrupting virtually every aspect of the political sphere in Scotland and around the world.
With this funding from SCGA, we will be hosting a series of workshops to figure out how mis/disinformation is currently affecting civil society and political processes here in Scotland. These workshops will engage key sectors of Scottish civil society (journalists, trade unionists, educators) to both help identify major problems arising from mis/disinformation and what best practice solutions that are being employed, or could be employed in response.
If you work in these sectors and would like to attend these workshops (due to occur in Spring 2026 in Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Aberdeen), please do get in touch with Dr Judith Sijstermans via email at judith.sijstermans@abdn.ac.uk.