Karryl Sagun-Trajano and Brendan Luyt | Disinformation on Wikipedia: the case of Ferdinand Marcos

Watch Karryl’s talk on YouTube.

Much of the focus on the issue of disinformation and its corollary, misinformation, are on the major social media platforms, but an understudied, yet potentially equally relevant part of this digital knowledge ecosystem is Wikipedia. In this study we look at the case of Ferdinand E. Marcos, President of the Philippines between 1965 and 1986. An examination of how the life and career of Marcos is narrated on Wikipedia provides an excellent example of the pitfalls confronting those seeking to address the rise of disinformation, without first reflecting deeply on the reasons why people subscribe to views deemed outlandish by the intellectual or cultural mainstream.

Brendan Luyt is an Associate Professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication & Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He received both his Master of Library and Information Science (MLIS) and PhD degrees from the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, Canada. He also holds a MA in Political Science from Queen’s University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada. His research focuses broadly on the social and policy landscape of information access both in contemporary and historical times. Currently he is especially interested in the study of the history of information institutions, including reading cultures of the past, and Wikipedia as a social phenomenon.

Karryl Kim Sagun-Trajano is a Research Fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Singapore. She explores future issues and technology relating to national security and geopolitics, including digital cultures. She holds a PhD from the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information (WKWSCI), NTU Singapore.