Katherine Ognyanova, School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University.

Center for Social Data Analytics virtual guest lecture series speaker presents:  Katherine Ognyanova is an associate professor at the School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University-"Networked public trust and misinformation".

Katherine Ognyanova is an associate professor at the School of Communication & Information, Rutgers University. Her research examines the effects of social influence on civic and political behavior, confidence in institutions, information exposure/evaluation, and public opinion formation. Ognyanova’s methodological expertise is in computational social science, network science, and survey research. Her recent work examines the links between misinformation exposure and political trust. She is also a colead on The COVID States Project (covidstates.org) – a large multi-university initiative exploring the social and political implications of COVID-19. You can visit Ognyanova’s website at www.kateto.net or follow her on Twitter at @Ognyanova.

This talk will discuss the network underpinnings of trust and its link to online misinformation and public opinion.
Belief in false political and health stories is linked to the declining public trust in democratic institutions. This complicated relationship has evolved in the context of a global pandemic in ways that are especially important for the design of successful policies and communication strategies. The presentation will outline key patterns linking public trust, misinformation, and health outcomes during the COVID pandemic. It will also discuss network-based approaches to curbing the spread of misinformation, focusing on a combination of technological and social factors that can reduce the tendency to share false stories online.