RGU team secure Dark Knowledge research grant
Tuesday 01 October 2024
Dark Knowledge is an emerging area in Information Management which broadly encompasses the production of biased, erroneous, or fabricated data, inaccessible and incomprehensible information, or the use of illegal or immoral knowledge.
Recent examples which highlight the impact of it include claims that a Russian disinformation campaign triggered riots across England this summer and criminal cases in which the perpetrators have searched for Dark Knowledge either to commit or to cover up a crime. Knowing how to buy illegal items or insider stock market trading can also be defined as Dark Knowledge.
Professor Simon Burnett from RGU’s School of Law and Social Sciences, who will lead the one-year project, said: “There are several recent cases which have appeared in the news which show the profound societal impact of Dark Knowledge.
“For example, the former head of MI6, Sir Richard Dearlove, recently claimed that the riots in Southport had been triggered by a Russian disinformation campaign. There have also been criminal cases in which culprits have searched for Dark Knowledge either to commit or to cover up a crime, for example the murder of teenager Brianna Ghey near Manchester in 2023.
“This is a significant grant, not only because Dark Knowledge is still an emergent concept, but also because as a topic it links together a range of subjects which we teach and research at RGU. For example, fake news in journalism; deep fakes in media; cyber security in the University’s School of Computing, Engineering and Technology; and criminology in the School of Law and Social Sciences.”
Professor Burnett will be supported by Research Assistant Lyndsay Mesjar to conduct the systematic literature review on Dark Knowledge.
The research team were successful in securing funding following an application to the 2024 British Academy/Leverhulme Trust Small Research Grants.
The RGU grant was one of 188 awards worth more than £1.7 million to support primary research in the Social Sciences, Humanities and the Arts for People and the Economy (SHAPE) academic disciplines.