Dylan Thurgood is a third-year DPhil in Social Data Science student at the OII. He holds an MSc in Social Data Science from the OII and a BSc in Economics from the University of Warwick, during which he spent one year studying at Universitat Pompeu Fabra in Barcelona. Dylan’s research lies at the intersection of political science, data science, psychology and communication studies. He is primarily interested in how individuals update their beliefs when they encounter news online via websites or social media platforms, focusing on AI-generated news, hyperpartisan news and public broadcaster news in particular. Besides gaining a better understanding of opinion formation at the micro-level and analysing the implications this has for society as a whole, his work focuses on interventions that could enhance collective intelligence and mitigate polarisation. His research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
Opinion formation; online news; collective intelligence; political polarisation; trust in institutions; science communication; e-participation; populism; conspiracy beliefs.
This programme supports research on AI, Government and Policy.
This project seeks to assess the persuasiveness of AI-generated news stories in the context of climate change by comparing in an online experiment how persuasive such news stories are compared to news stories written by humans.
4 June 2024
With millions of EU citizens set to take to the polls this week, OII researchers consider how digital technologies intersect with the European Parliament elections.
24 May 2024
South Africa is approaching a watershed election on May 29th, 2024.
9 November 2023
Eight OII DPhil students have received Dieter Schwarz Foundation (DSF) funding to enable them to begin a 12-month research project during the course of their studies.
Director, Associate Professor, Senior Policy Fellow
Victoria Nash is the OII's Director and a Senior Policy Fellow. Her research focuses on the opportunities and risks experienced by children using digital technologies; she also leads OII engagement on Internet regulation and digital policy issues.
Associate Professor, Senior Research Fellow
Greg Taylor's research focuses on the economics of competition policy and regulation for digital and technology markets.
