Professor Simeon Yates BA BSc DipNatSci PhD

This work explores a range of issues around citizens' use of digital systems and media. Recent projects in this area include:Me and My Big Data

This project seeks to understand the levels of and variations in UK citizens data literacy, and to develop policy and educational materials to support improving this. Led by Professor Simeon Yates, the outline for this project was developed just before the “Cambridge Analytica” scandal broke. This made clear the extent to which we as citizens are unaware of the uses and abuses to which our data can be put. Improving digital literacy was already a key policy goal of governments worldwide. A key component of citizens digital literacy is an understanding of the uses of their personal data. Unfortunately, evidence from UK (Ofcom) and USA (Pew) indicates that many citizens have limited understanding of the data they share, its use by organisations, nor basic data protection behaviours. Nor are they aware of how they can utilise publicly available data to undertake both personal and civic action. This lack of “data literacy” opens citizens up to risks and limits their ability to operate as active citizens in a digital society. Also, evidence is growing of inequalities in data literacy that mirror broader social inequality. This project will examine and address these issues in four broad ways:

1] explore through survey data and citizen workshops the extent of citizens’ data literacy
2] analyse the social basis of variations and inequalities in data literacy across a range of factors
3] develop training and support materials for schools, universities and third sector groups in order to enhance citizen’s data literacy
4] develop policy recommendations for stakeholders on enhancing citizen data literacy.LATIF Project

This project brings the Analysis of Competing Hypotheses (ACH) methodology to the fact-checking domain to counter and control for cognitive bias in the fact-checking process. The project will develop a new generation of digital tools based on ACH to empower and improve fact-checking organizations’ decision-making processes. LATIF begins with a qualitative assessment of fact-checkers understanding and identification of cognitive bias. The project will then leverage these insights to inform the design of a digital infrastructure to improve fact checkers’ decision-making processes towards impartiality (de-bias fact-checking tool). The usefulness of these tools will be then assessed through feedback provided by the fact-checkers and observing potential changes in public visibility of the enhanced fact-checks combining qualitative and quantitative methodologies.Fake News Immunity

The Being Alone Together: Developing Fake News Immunity project is about empowering citizens to critically understand and engage with the information manipulations they encounter on the internet, especially during the Covid-19 pandemic. The main goal of this project is to reverse-engineer the manipulation of information providing citizens with the means to act as fact checkers. We believe that fostering global digital activism constitutes a necessary means to fight the current info-pandemic.

The majority of fact-checking and myth-busting sites (e.g. EUvsDisinfo, https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public/myth-busters) counter false narratives and news that have already become viral, unable to prevent their spread.

Leveraging NLP techniques for topic modelling and frame analysis we will trace the topics and frames which characterize semi-fake COVID-19 news using FullFact and the Coronavirus debunking archive built by First Draft as benchmarks. With the data we collect we will create a digital platform with a chatbot for training citizens to spot misinformation. Citizens who have been trained will have access to the Fake News Immunity platform, working together with experts in the common effort of flagging semi-fake news.

We have been exploring the impacts of digital inequalities for over two decades working with key stakeholders such as DCMS, Ofcom, Charities such as Good Things Foundation and Carnegie UK Trust, as well as regional governments such as Sheffield, Liverpool and Greater Manchester. COVID-19 has laid bare the long standing challenges of digital inequalities in the UK. Inequalities that impact all aspects of life, be that work, education, leisure, health, or wellbeing. In education, the team found that 23.4% of 5-15 year olds in the poorest households do not have access to both an educationally useable device (laptop, desktop, or tablet) and broadband. This equates to 524,871 UK children, of whom 74,225 are likely studying for their GCSEs. In health, it has been found that digital exclusion is one the main predictors of citizens not engaging with testing. In our current Nuffield funded research we find that citizens of all ages with low digital skills are at greater risk of online harms and more likely to be exposed to and accept dis/mis/mal-information. As a result the nature and consequences of digital exclusion have become a renewed focus for policy makers. Our long term collaborative work has been underpinned by ESRC, AHRC and charitable funding - developing a model of relative digital inclusion and exclusion.

Two consistent themes arise from this collaborative work. First, as already noted in academic research, standard policy measures of digital exclusion (based on access to or recent use of internet services) significantly underestimate the challenge faced by households. As a result, local government and agencies have been significantly underprepared for the digital inclusion challenges presented by COVID-19. A mobile internet connection and an old laptop make you “online” under standard Ofcom and ONS statistics, but this is well below the minimum needed for a family trying to undertake working and schooling from home. Second, families and households have become the focus of attention. Prior work has tended to measure individual levels of access, skills and capabilities. COVID-19 has highlighted how households require a complex mix of access, device types and skills for work, education, leisure, health and well-being.

Our current project supported by the Nuffield Foundation, Nominet, and the Welsh government is developing a proof-of-concept “Minimum Digital Living Standard” (MDLS) for UK households. This proof-of-concept will focus on households with children. This innovative approach will be grounded in the proven Minimum Income Standard (MIS) method and provide a clear benchmark by which to assess relative digital poverty and inequalities.

For more details on this project see: MDLS

We have been working on a range of projects that explore future research issues for both digital research and research about the digital society. Two recent projects are:ESRC Digital Footprints Strategic Advice Team
The aim of the Digital Footprints programme is to coordinate, convene, develop and support thriving interdisciplinary digital footprint data communities, focused on addressing pressing national and international challenges. The programme will be delivered in two phases and a series of workshops will be held online.

People’s interactions with the world and each other are increasingly mediated by digital devices. These interactions create digital footprints data. This data includes:

internet and social media
geo-spatial
commercial and transactional
sensor and image data

They can be harnessed to understand and address key research, business and policy questions about our increasingly digital society.

However, digital footprints data cannot currently be used to its full potential. Researchers are limited by a number of challenges including insufficient data access and infrastructure, underdeveloped methodology and theoretical development, and opaque ethical procedures. Digital Footprints will deliver a transformational shift in the creation, access and use of digital footprint data. It will address critical gaps within the landscape and unlock the huge opportunity for digital footprint data to positively transform research and policy-making for areas of national and international interest.

(https://waysofbeingdigital.com)

Simeon also recently led the Economic and Social Research Council review of "Ways of Being in a Digital Age" in collaboration with 17 UK and international universities. The aim of the scoping review is to undertake a systematic literature review and synthesis that will identify gaps in current research and determine where future initiatives by the ESRC might add most value. A further aim of the review is to build and extend networks among the academic community, other stakeholders and potential funding partners. The review examined:

Citizenship and politics: How digital technology impacts on our autonomy, agency and privacy – illustrated by the paradox of emancipation and control.
Whether and how our understanding of citizenship is evolving in the digital age – for example, whether technology helps or hinders us in participating at individual and community levels.

Communities and identities: How we define and authenticate ourselves in a digital age. What new forms of communities and work emerge as a result of digital technologies – for example, new forms of coordination including large-scale and remote collaboration.

Communication and relationships; How our relationships are being shaped and sustained in and between various domains, including family and work.
Health and wellbeing: Whether technology makes us healthier, better educated and more productive.
Economy and sustainability: How we can construct the digital to be open to all, sustainable and secure.
Data and representation: How we live with and trust the algorithms and data analysis used to shape key features of our lives.
Governance and security: What the challenges of ethics, trust and consent are in the digital age. How we define responsibility and accountability in the digital age.