UConn Today featured Assistant Professor of Sociology, Darrell Irwin, in "Report: Russian Disinformation Campaign Targeted Ukraine, Other Countries During Pandemic." The article discusses Professor Irwin's involvement with research to counter Russian sourced disinformation efforts directed at the state health sector and its COVID-19 response and vaccine hesitation in Kazakhstan, Georgia and the Ukraine.
*Excerpt from Article*
Irwin was a consultant on a December report put out by The Critical Mass, “Contaminated Trust: Public Health Disinformation and its Societal Impacts in Georgia, Kazakhstan, and Ukraine,” that looked at the dissemination of Russian disinformation in Eastern Europe and Central Asia during the pandemic.
The study, which was conducted from February to August last year, relied on in-country civilian volunteers, journalists, and medical professionals who logged their media consumption and submitted to in-depth interviews during a time when the pandemic raged and vaccines were shunned in the three countries.