By rethinking the conceptual framework in which disinformation is understood, to develop innovative qualitative methods for studying it as a translingual, historically contingent discourse, laying the grounds for a transformative new Critical Disinformation Studies (CDS)
Through the application of this new conceptual framework and methodology, to improve our understanding of the mutation of disinformation discourses and narratives over time and across lingua-cultural and geopolitical divides, filling a major gap in the field and correcting the hitherto monolingual bias in its coverage
To facilitate a Modern Languages-led interdisciplinary investigation of a major societal challenge, generating a CDS toolset that enhances the ability of modern linguists to address this challenge by incorporating methods from Cold War history, translation studies, audience research, media studies, security, and cybersecurity studies (including their policy dimensions) and discourse analysis
To carry out a range of detailed historical and contemporary case studies reconstructing the full dynamic in which the relationship between the calibration of narratives by their producers, their public acquisition of disinformation status and their reception by target audiences shifts as they travel from one lingua-cultural environment to another
To shed light on how Russia's perceived role as a producer and disseminator of disinformation past and present should be understood within a comparative context, how these historically shaped perceptions continue to inform wider understandings of disinformation, and how they have been reshaped by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine
To construct a pioneering model of collaborative knowledge generation in which academics, policy analysts and counter-disinformation practitioners tackle conceptual and methodological issues pertaining to the identification and countering of information-manipulation activities, and incorporating simulation models developed by Chatham House to test the efficacy of policy responses to disinformation in diverse local contexts
To help stakeholders support democratic integrity, information resilience and good governance, improving their appreciation of the importance of the different lingua-cultural and historical contexts in which disinformation is produced and consumed, their tools for detecting manipulated information and their understanding of the relationship between counter-disinformation theory and practice, thus ensuring a more reflexive and dynamic approach to the problems at stake
To offer career development opportunities to early career researchers by inducting them into the project's intellectual networks, providing opportunities for publications, impact work and training, and building capacity in Language-Based Area Studies, Communication Studies, and Cold War History
To produce a co-authored monograph, a series of refereed journal articles for academic beneficiaries in media studies, history, translation studies, area studies and medical humanities, and a REF Impact Case Study.
To produce reports, co-authored with policy community members, for our non-academic collaborators and partners, including the WHO, the FCO, OFCOM and DCMS, summarizing the relevance of our findings and proposing transformative new approaches to countering disinformation which will bolster UK information resilience and deepen policymakers' understanding of a key threat to UK security.