Faculty of Communication and Public Relations

Permanent URI for this communityhttp://localhost:4000/handle/123456789/2

Browse

Browsing Faculty of Communication and Public Relations by Author "Achimescu, Vlad"

Filter results by typing the first few letters
Now showing 1 - 2 of 2
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Feeding the troll detection algorithm: Informal flags used as labels in clșassification models to indentify perceived computational propaganda
    (University of Illinois at Chicago University Library, 2020) Achimescu, Vlad; Sultănescu, Dan
    The authenticity of public debate is challenged by the emergence of networks of non-genuine users (such as political bots and trolls) employed and maintained by governments to influence public opinion. To tackle this issue, researchers have developed algorithms to automatically detect non-genuine users, but it is not clear how to identify relevant content, what features to use and how often to retrain classifiers. Users of online discussion boards who informally flag other users by calling them out as paid trolls provide potential labels of perceived propaganda in real time. Against this background, we test the performance of supervised machine learning models (regularized regression and random forests) to predict discussion board comments perceived as propaganda by users of a major Romanian online newspaper. Results show that precision and recall are relatively high and stable, and re-training the model on new labels does not improve prediction diagnostics. Overall, metadata (particularly a low comment rating) are more predictive of perceived propaganda than textual features. The method can be extended to monitor suspicious activity in other online environments, but the results should not be interpreted as detecting actual propaganda.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The path from distrusting Western actors to conspiracy beliefs and noncompliance with public health guidance during the COVID-19 crisis
    (Taylor & Francis Online, 2021-06-15) Achimescu, Vlad; Sultănescu, Dan; Sultănescu, Daniela
    Global crises provide a fertile environment for the proliferation of disinformation and conspiracy narratives that feed on the people’s distrust of institutions. We investigate perceptions and beliefs related to COVID-19 in Romania during the lockdown and the state of alert (April and July 2020) using survey data. Building on measures tested in previous research, we identify the public’s vulnerability to conspiracy narratives and its willingness to comply with public health guidance. We test whether individuals exhibiting pro-Russian or anti-Western attitudes believe more strongly in COVID-19 conspiracy narratives compared to the rest of the population. Then, we check if those believing conspiracy narratives are less susceptible to comply with public health recommendations. We find an indirect relationship between distrusting Western actors and noncompliance with COVID-19 guidelines. Thus, pro-Russian and anti-EU, U.S. and NATO attitudes are linked to stronger conspiracy beliefs, which relate to lower levels of concern and knowledge regarding the virus, which in turn are associated with reduced compliance with official guidelines. This suggests that openness to anti-Western narratives may have behavioral consequences. The findings highlight potential sources of unsafe behaviors during the pandemic, especially in the young democracies of Eastern Europe.