Focus Areas
MEO has worked with a wide range of Canadian and international partners to deliver work in a variety of focus areas, in each instance collecting enormous volumes of digital trace data and pairing them with regular surveying of voting populations.
We have found that Canadians’ lives are increasingly shaped by digital technologies. In order to deliver on democratic ideals of free and fair elections, our information and media environment must be one where citizens are provided an extensive range of political arguments based on factually accurate information that allows them to make informed choices. Mis/disinformation, algorithmic amplification of content, and actors with malicious intent all pose a threat to this ability and consequently contribute to the erosion of democracy.
The Canadian Digital Media Research Network (CDMRN) is a pioneering initiative committed to fortifying and fostering resilience within Canada's unique information ecosystem. It has been made possible through a large grant from Heritage Canada’s Digital Citizen Initiative.
MEO election projects document, evaluate, and protect against foreign interference as well as mis- and disinformation. We examine information flows in Canada during the election period across social and broadcast media and conducted representative surveys focused on misinformation attitudes, perceptions, and exposure.
Mis- and Disinformation
The Media Ecosystem Observatory’s team of researchers and partners regularly publishes timely academic work based on large-scale online data analysis and survey research which, in early 2020, focused on the COVID-19 pandemic.