BCL Autumn Seminar Series 2023/24
Historical and contemporary perspectives of disinformation
Organised by Bristol Centre for Linguistics (BCL).
Key Information:
- Date and time
- Wed 08 November 2023
13:00 - 14:00 - Location
- Online Event
- Contact
- Dr Minna Kirjavainen-Morgan Minna.Kirjavainen-Morgan@uwe.ac.uk
- Cost
- Free
- Attendance
- Booking required
About the event
Join our guest speaker, Dr William Dance (Lancaster University) for his online talk, Historical and contemporary perspectives of disinformation.
Disinformation, false information that is shared to deceive others, is a prominent global issue with more than 50 governments worldwide enacting or proposing legislation, task forces and investigations to address its spread (Funke and Flamini, 2019). Despite these actions, little research has investigated the history of disinformation as a linguistic term. In this talk, I will trace terms such as ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ through large historical corpora to address the following two research questions:
- How far back can these terms be traced?
- What other synonyms and near-synonyms have been used throughout the centuries?
Historical corpora offer researchers a wealth of qualitative evidence for how linguistic terms are used in context (Mair, 2009) and can present otherwise inaccessible records in the form of machine-readable documents. This research finds that written documents addressing ‘false news’ date back centuries and discovers several competing terms. These synonyms are examined for their frequency over time to see which variants had greater longevity and which were relatively transient.
These findings are compared to contemporary social media datasets of discussions of the terms ‘disinformation’ and ‘misinformation’ to understand how these topics are discussed in the modern era. Using 20-million tokens of Twitter discussions, trends are identified and explored over a ten-year period to identify what dominates discussions of disinformation and how people in ‘real-world’ settings talk about deception online. Combining corpus-based approaches such as keyness and collocation analysis with close qualitative readings of texts, we can better understand how disinformation has changed over time, and what this can teach us about tackling its spread today and in the future..
Registration
All welcome to this free online event.
Please register your attendance and we will send you the Zoom joining link.
- Cost: Free
- Attendance: Booking required
Location
This is an online event
Related events

Wed 24 September 2025, 09:00
Swab out crime
The Students' Union, Frenchay Campus
Help to create an anonymous, UK-wide DNA database.

Wed 24 September 2025, 10:30
Cyber security awareness
Level 2, Frenchay Library, Frenchay Campus
Cyber security event focussing on raising awareness of cyber crime, with particular focus on social engineering.

Wed 24 September 2025, 11:00
Freshers Fair 2025
The Students' Union at UWE, Frenchay Campus
Join in and find out about everything that The Students’ Union, sports clubs, societies, and the University itself has to offer.

Wed 24 September 2025, 12:00
The placement uniform swap shop
The Students' Union at UWE, Glenside Campus, UWE Bristol, Blackberry Hill, Fishponds
Our drop-in swap shop for a more budget-friendly, eco-friendly placement experience.

Wed 24 September 2025, 15:00
How to put your reading into your writing
Online
This workshop will help you to learn how to incorporate themes and ideas from multiple sources into your own work.

Wed 24 September 2025, 16:30
Paint or decorate a tote bag
3S501, S block, Frenchay Campus
Come join us for a fun-filled evening where you can let your creativity shine by painting or decorating your very own tote bag!

Thu 25 September 2025, 09:00
Global morning coffee
Global Lounge, 2P4, P Block, Frenchay Campus
A morning welcome from the Global Student Support Team to provide you with all the support and guidance you need to help you to settle into student life!

Thu 25 September 2025, 10:00
How studying at UWE Bristol will be different
3X114, X block, Frenchay Campus
Join other international students to learn how to study effectively.

Thu 25 September 2025, 10:30
Cyber security awareness
Level 2, Frenchay Library, Frenchay Campus
Cyber security event focussing on raising awareness of cyber crime, with particular focus on social engineering.

Thu 25 September 2025, 11:00
Construction Project Management postgraduate webinar
Online
Join our live webinar and meet programme leaders from our MSc Construction Project Management.

Thu 25 September 2025, 11:00
Freshers Fair 2025
The Students' Union at UWE, Frenchay Campus
Join in and find out about everything that The Students’ Union, sports clubs, societies, and the University itself has to offer.

Thu 25 September 2025, 11:00
Introduction to using generative AI at UWE Bristol
Online
This session provides an overview of how to use generative AI effectively at UWE Bristol.