Dr Emma L Briant

Professor, Journalist, Speaker and Consultant

 

I am an internationally recognized expert and scholar of information warfare and propaganda who helps policy makers, governments, business leaders, journalists and the general public understand and respond to the challenge of contemporary online threats.

 

 

“The woman exposing the propaganda puppet masters” Index on Censorship 2022

“One of the world’s leading experts in information wars.” Der Spiegel 2023

(View Media Reporting)

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Speaking Testimonials

 

“I found Dr. Briant an insightful speaker and her talk helped us understand the dangers of big tech to Democracy, the role of whistleblowers and the next steps that companies and policy makers need to take. Our students found her compelling, easy to understand and an expert in the field.”

Prof. Anya Schiffrin, Director of Technology, Media, and Communications at Columbia University’s School of International and Public Affairs 


“”I recently hosted Dr. Briant for a webinar and other dialogues regarding how disinformation actors profit financially and politically from sowing confusion in information channels. Her presentations are very informative because she delivers with urgency and candor, leveraging her deep research expertise and networks. I found her engagement highly credible because she offers authentic and independent assessment of the Kafkaesque information environment we currently face, with some ideas for how to mitigate the risk. She has made tangible impact in our audiences, which include current and future global business leaders, because she has helped communicate the vastness of the disinformation threat, the incentives that underlie disinformation agents’ efforts, and the depths to which some agents will go to disrupt business practice, sometimes by undermining global economic and political stability. We are migrating her knowledge into our curriculum because it has resonated with our community who is responsible for assessing, reporting, and protecting against core business risks. Much of the prior focus has been on forecasting traditional business risk exposure. Emma has helped clarify that traditional risks, like climate or cybersecurity, are amplified by disinformation actors. She has also helped clarify that businesses are not fully prepared for their own direct exposure to disinformation and that some businesses are even responsible for contributing to societal harm from their own disinformation practices.”

Prof. Alan Jagolinzer, Professor of Financial Accounting, University of Cambridge, Judge Business School 2023.

“Your keynote was very well received and from comments I got from a survey to staff it has people thinking much more deeply about propaganda and misinformation.”

Renee Raume, University of Calgary.

 

List of Speaking

 

About Dr. Briant

Dr Briant is an internationally recognized expert on information warfare and propaganda, who is Associate Professor of News and Political Communication at Monash University, Melbourne, Australia.

She is a British scholar was one of the key researchers who uncovered the Cambridge Analytica scandal in 2018, with two books and contributions to two major documentary films. As Associate Researcher at Bard College she extended her international reputation on data-driven disinformation, surveillance and human rights. Films for which she contributed as researcher include Oscar-shortlisted Netflix film The Great Hack and People You May Know.

For her book Propaganda and Counter-Terrorism: Strategies for Global Change (Manchester University Press, 2015), Dr Briant analyzed the coordination and increasing impacts of the digitalization of defense propaganda – Prof. Robert McChesney (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) kindly endorsed it: “This sophisticated book should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.”

This fed Dr Briant’s deep interest in the actors behind the influence campaigns. She spent 13 years researching SCL Group, Cambridge Analytica and the wider influence industry inluding its work in defence, politics and commercial markets. Her testimony was central in revealing wrongdoing by Cambridge Analytica and Facebook in 2018. She built the first interactive mapping of Cambridge Analytica’s worldwide clients and is finalizing her book, ‘Propaganda Machine: Inside Cambridge Analytica and the ‘Bad Influence’ Industry’ and a new Routledge Handbook on the Influence Industry (with Vian Bakir, Bangor). She regularly provides important evidence and testimony informing policy debates in the US Congress, UK Parliament, Canadian Parliament and European Parliament and has testified and acted as witness in UK and US courts regarding digital influence operations. She regularly gives advice to politicians, governments, NGO’s and Tech companies seriously engaging in efforts to tackle ‘disinformation for hire’, data rights and information warfare.

MAVEN OF PERSUASION ON PATREON

Academic Roles

  • Associate Professor in News and Political Communication, Monash University, Melbourne, Australia (2023-ongoing)
  • Research Associate in Human Rights Program at Bard College, New York (2019-2021) then Fellow (2021-ongoing)
  • Senior Lecturer (Associate Professor) in Journalism, University of Essex (2017-2019)
  • Lecturer (Assistant Professor) in Journalism Studies at University of Sheffield (2013-1017)

NEW: TAKE MY ONLINE PROPAGANDA AND DISINFORMATION COURSE!

Making a Difference

Dr Briant is an internationally recognized expert and speaker on information warfare and propaganda who in 2018 was central in revealing wrongdoing of the campaign firm Cambridge Analytica and its parent SCL, including their work for international campaigns and Trump and Brexit. This evidence helped expose and bring about the collapse of a highly unethical company and ignite an important debate of privacy, big data ethics and how propaganda is deployed in a digital age. A central thread of her research considers how the contemporary (socio-political, economic and technological) development of systems of propaganda by state, corporate, and other non-governmental actors raises challenges for democracy; and in whose interests they are resolved or managed. It examines for example the ethics, norms, subcultures and uses/abuses of power in relation to emergent practice in propaganda within and by democracies. Her testimony has been debated and discussed in the UK Parliament several times, the EU parliament, the US Congress as well as the Canadian Parliament.

Dr Briant’s consulting and journalistic projects have been central in raising awareness of important issues of data rights, mass surveillant propaganda, and how to tackle ‘disinformation’. She has authored many reports and op-eds and was Senior Researcher on the 2020 Academy Award shortlisted and BAFTA nominated documentary film The Great Hack on Netflix. 

She is finalizing a new sole-authored book ‘Propaganda Machine: Tackling Cambridge Analytica and the ‘Bad Influence’ Industry‘. During this policy-oriented research and for other publications I spent many years researching SCL Group and it’s subsidiary Cambridge Analytica and contributed to several important public inquiries which helped to bring an unethical influence industry into the light enabling real scrutiny of powerful actors undermining our democratic systems and led to my current book project. Dr Briant’s research and expertise is regularly reported in the media internationally (full list).

Dr Briant’s research has featured in the media and influenced policy for a decade. Her first book Bad News for Refugees, (Pluto Press, 2013, co-authored with Greg Philo and Pauline Donald), examined UK political and media discourse on migration prior to ‘Brexit’ as well as its impact on communities. It involved collaboration with the Red Cross and Refugee Council, demonstrating the negative impact of misleading coverage of the refugee crisis on communities and migrants’ mental health. The book made real-world changes when Dr Briant and her co-authors contributed evidence with Scottish Refugee Council to the Home Affairs Parliamentary Select Committee Inquiry into Asylum & UK Media, which led to new UK rules on journalism ethics in 2013.

Dr Briant’s longstanding research impact includes some of her first publications – in 2011 Dr Briant was lead author on the study ‘Bad News for Disabled People‘ with Nick Watson and Greg Philo. Backed by Inclusion London, the study became important evidence relied on in the UK’s Leveson Inquiry into the British press, it was widely reported and was directly discussed both in a House of Commons debate on disability hate crime and in the Work and Pensions Select Committee (February 2012). The Committee Chair relied on it to question Department of Work and Pensions Ministers concerning the changing attitudes to disabled people and the transformation of the language used to represent disabled people and disability welfare benefits in the media (read more in the research impact 2014 case study from Glasgow University).

I worked with Prof Robert M Entman on a project analyzing the Democrats’ political communication failures and the 2016 election of Donald Trump –  What’s Wrong with the Democrats? Media Bias, Inequality and the rise of Donald Trump.

My first peer-reviewed academic article and the report on which it was based were submitted as examples of research exellence to the Research Evaluation Framework in 2014 by University of Glasgow as a case study for societal impact of research. This research, on which I was first author and guided a team of research assistants, helped Glasgow University achieve Rank of 1st in Scotland and 8th in the UK in sociology, with a GPA of 3.20 and 75% of the work considered world-leading or internationally excellent after I moved on to my first faculty post at University of Sheffield. Here is an extract from the Research Evaluation detailing the research’s policy impact as an example of excellence and you can read the full impact case study here:

“This research ignited the political debate on media representations of disabled people. For example, on 14 November 2011, the report was directly cited by Dame Tanni Grey-Thompson in a welfare reform debate in the House of Lords as evidence of widespread misrepresentation of disabled people and disability benefits. Also in November 2011, the Shadow Minister for Disability Issues referred directly to the University of Glasgow findings in a House of Commons debate on disability hate crime. The report was also mentioned during discussion in the Work and Pensions Select Committee (February 2012), allowing the National Autistic Society and Disability Alliance to draw attention to ‘the negative tone adopted in the media about wider disability issues’. The Committee Chair also used the research in the in the Committee’s questioning of DWP Ministers concerning the changing attitudes to disabled people and the transformation of the language used to represent disabled people and disability benefits in the media. The research was cited in the Work and Pensions Select Committee’s report Government support towards the extra living costs of working age disabled people and in a Westminster Briefing prepared by The Parliamentary Office of Science and Technology on Work Capacity Assessment. The Committee Chair has also drawn from the research in the preparation of speeches and articles relating to the change of language used to describe disabled people since the 2010 General Election.”

Here is the article, on which the research impact assessment was based, still my most-cited academic publication:

Emma L Briant, Nick Watson and Greg Philo (September 2013) ‘Reporting Disability in the Age of Austerity: the changing face of media representation of disability and disabled people in the United Kingdom and the creation of new folk devils‘ in Disability and Society, Vol 28, No 6.

 

Films

Matt Danzico on my work for his forthcoming documentary film: “Emma did a fantastic job helping conduct difficult research for our film. She’s always very positive, fun to work with, and often brilliant.”

The Great Hack

The Great Hack
The Great Hack – Netflix

I was Senior Researcher on the 2019 Netflix Documentary Film ‘The Great Hack’ which premiered at Sundance Film Festival and was BAFTA nominated and Oscar Shortlisted. It’s a MUST watch if you’re interested in the Cambridge Analytica scandal, data misuse in elections and the role of disinformation in elections.

 

People You May Know


People You May Know, an Emmy nominated documentary released on Amazon Prime in fall 2020 (NOW WATCH ON YOUTUBE)I am proud to have been involved in the making of this documentary on Republican religious data harvesting for propaganda ahead of the 2020 election ‘People You May Know‘ – see it on Amazon Prime. I advised the filmmakers in the early stages regarding Cambridge Analytica and have been credited for my key role. The film makers Katharina Gellein Viken and Charles Kriel have done an incredible job investigating a live data operation for this important public interest film – it features prominently the work of Australian researcher Brent Allpress and for more information you can also read Shadow Network by Anne Nelson who is interviewed.

 

 

Propaganda Research

 

 

Interactive Cambridge Analytica Map

My 2019-20 major project has just launched! The Interactive Cambridge Analytica Map collates and analyzes reporting of the scandal-ridden company Strategic Communication Laboratories (SCL) and their subsidiary Cambridge Analytica (CA), whose wrongdoing I was central in exposing in 2018. It maps reported global reach (1989-2018), including clients and projects. It visualizes the expanding scale and spread of their activities over time and allows you to move back and forward in time exploring projects. Explore the map on the Propaganda Machine project website. Best explored on desktop not mobile.

My prior work includes analyses of media coverage of disability and asylum in the UK with the Glasgow Media Group where I worked and studied for her PhD in Sociology prior appointment to Sheffield University in 2013. During this time I co-authored my first book ‘Bad News for Refugees‘ with Greg Philo and Pauline Donald. I remain a proud member of Glasgow Media Group.

 

Navigate via the menu above to check out my publications, posts, media coverage and reviews

Dr Briant does consulting in the areas of her expertise at her company Maven of Persuasion LLC – as a speaker, for her policy, research and other advisory services, training, or expert work in her areas of expertise.

What Maven DOES – use her expertise to educate and raise awareness on the issues and tactics of propaganda, disinformation and influence operations, speaking, offering advice on advancing ethics and transparency, helping raise our resilience to such activities and understanding of how one may be targeted.

What Maven DOES NOT do – campaigns, ‘strategic communication’, help tracking or ‘countering’ disinformation or any other campaigns, or training on how to do these things.


Books

COMING SOON!

-PROPAGANDA MACHINE: INSIDE CAMBRIDGE ANALYTICA AND THE DIGITAL INFLUENCE INDUSTRY-

Propaganda Machine will tell the untold story of Cambridge Analytica (CA) examining the origins, rise and continuing threat of a new breed of influence firm who brought dirty tricks and propaganda into a digital age. It will examine CA’s and rise and the development of a network of companies working in military, political and commercial campaigns, how growth of access to social media data opened the door to big data harvesting, analytics, psychographics, and the techniques of surveillant advertising for an expanding digital influence industry. This project will explain the global expansion of a model of data-driven and defense derived propaganda methods which ultimately enabled a uniquely contemporary media crisis during the Brexit and Trump campaigns and around the world.

 


-WHAT’S WRONG WITH THE DEMOCRATS? MEDIA BIAS, INEQUALITY AND THE RISE OF DONALD TRUMP-

My new work in progress with Prof. Robert M Entman:

In this book we analyse how over several decades a failure by The Democratic Party to fully deliver policies that would halt rising economic inequality, was reinforced by a growing inability to communicate these policies among key communities… read more…


 

2015

BIG COVER PIC

-PROPAGANDA AND COUNTER-TERRORISM: STRATEGIES FOR GLOBAL CHANGE-

Emma Louise Briant (2015) ‘Propaganda and Counter-terrorism: Strategies for Global Change’, Manchester: Manchester University Press.

Endorsement from cover from Professor Robert W. McChesney, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign:

“Emma Briant’s Propaganda and counter-terrorism is a superb analysis of the propaganda provided by the governments of the United States and United Kingdom in present times. It is thoroughly researched and contextualized, and offers fresh insights into the great risks these practices hold for democracy. This sophisticated book should be mandatory reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.”

Recent Praise:

Propaganda and Counter-terrorism is a “path-breaking study” which “explodes myths about propaganda” Prof. Alex Law, Abertay University, Dundee, Scotland.

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2013
bnfr cover

-BAD NEWS FOR REFUGEES-

Greg Philo, Emma Briant & Pauline Donald (2013) ‘Bad News for Refugees‘ London: Pluto Press.

Endorsement from the back of the book by Professor James Curran, Goldsmiths, University of London:

“This is an enormously important book that documents with meticulous scholarship the way in which immigrants have been stigmatised by the British media. It offers a compelling analysis of what is omitted from media accounts, which voices are left unheard, how simplifications and stereotypes are generated, and the consequences of this prejudiced reporting for immigrant communities who feel themselves to be under constant attack.”

Recent Praise:

‘As for the volume as a whole, ‘useful’ would be an understatement. It can be described as essential for anyone seeking an antidote to the type of journalism it castigates.’  Stuart Parkes.

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Teaching and Training

I have been teaching for over 15 years during which time I have accumulated extensive experience of curriculum and course design, teaching and assessing students across a range of subject areas and levels of higher education in the areas of Media and Political Communication, Sociology, Politics, Research Methods and even English as a Foreign Language. I have extensive management and administrative experience, having won awards for line managing junior teaching and research staff, and am familiar with higher education HR processes. I have experience designing curriculum and courses and developing innovative teaching including role plays for the students. I currently teach at American University where I teach COMM100 Understanding Media, and I taught at Bard College, Annandale on Hudson, New York in the Human Rights Program in 2019-21 where I designed two unique courses:

‘Propaganda: Dark Arts in a Digital Age’ – Spring 2020

‘Contemporary Propaganda: Cambridge Analytica and the Digital Influence Industry’ – Spring 2021

I am invested in the knowledge exchange between academia and industry / policy stakeholders and have developed and delivered highly successful executive education courses to that end, encompassing: counter-extremism, ethics and information operations, disinformation and US national security. This includes:

Workshop with Syracuse University for the Government Accountability Office (2021) ‘Tackling Disinformation and Extremism in DOD and the Military: Key Issues & Proposals,’ as the US Government has sought to respond to the events of January 6.

Foreign Service Institute, US Department of State (2021) ‘Systemic Problems in the Digital Age’ a Propaganda and Disinformation course in the Global Issues Program.

 

OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERAI am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy of the United Kingdom, qualifying me to teach in universities and colleges. My teaching at University of Essex Department of Journalism included the undergraduate first year module Principles of Journalism, Contemporary History and Public Affairs. For University of Sheffield I designed a module ‘Propaganda, Media and Conflict in a Changing World’ – the above photo was taken during a role play I designed for that course and is used with the students permission. I also supervise PhD dissertations and my other duties have included role of Ethics Officer and organising a departmental Speaker Series. I often arrange public talks with fascinating experts which can be seen on my YouTube including:

Brent Allpress, Senior Lecturer at RMIT University & Researcher on People You May Know

Brittany Kaiser, former Director of Business Development at Cambridge Analytica

Ade Rudd, a former UK army PSYOP Warrant Officer and expert on deception who has written doctrine for NATO.

 


Grants and Awards


Selected Visiting Appointments

2015

In 2015 I had the privilege of being an NYU Visiting Scholar. While there I conducted research, visited Prof. Terence Moran and Prof. Steven Lukes, and taught in the Department of Media, Culture and Communication and Department of Sociology. Here I am with Prof. Lukes’ classes of 2015 and 2017, I am honored to have continued to be invited to give guest lectures on propaganda and on Cambridge Analytica in Prof. Lukes’ classes on power every year since.

2015
2015
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2017

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2015

In July and August I then was invited to George Washington University – a wonderful experience being a visiting scholar in the School of Media and Public Affairs, meeting all the staff and developing new research.

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2016

I returned to SMPA in 2016-17 having won a prestigious post-doctoral opportunity to spend the academic year progressing research and publications, including a planned book co-authored with Prof. Robert M Entman. Here we are presenting our research at the Humboldt Colloquium in Washington DC.

Humboldt Colloquium Humboldt Colloquium

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2018

I have given numerous academic and public talks and visited university departments in several countries. During my sabbatical in 2018, as I worked on propaganda research and a co-authored book with Prof. Robert M Entman, I returned to SMPA at George Washington University, who invited me back as a visiting scholar (April-June). I was also excited to have been a visiting scholar at Georgetown University’s Al Waleed Center for Muslim Christian Understanding by Prof. John Esposito, and Stanford University’s Department of Communication by Prof. Fred Turner in July and August 2018. It was a privilege to have such a great opportunity to spend time with three great communities of scholars, and be immersed in American politics, media and culture throughout such an interesting and transformational period of American history.

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Knowledge Exchange and Engagement

My first invited talk was in 2006 for NATO Centre for Defence Against Terrorism in Ankara and since then I have been honoured that my research has been discussed in the British Parliament US Congress and has had substantial political impacts. These included opportunities to brief government officials, NGOs, inquiries and investigations. Many of these resulted from my role in revealing the Cambridge Analytica scandal. My publications on this as well as my work on refugees, inequality, and conflict propaganda have all received substantial media reporting.

Speaking at Schools

Stags Nov 2014

Research Interviews at the Pentagon

Pentagon pics 2

Education

PhD Sociology, jointly supervised in Politics, University of Glasgow, UK (2011)

Economics and Social Research Council Studentship funded

 

Diploma in Literature & Creative Writing, Open University, UK (2010)

 

MSc Sociology University of Glasgow, UK (2007)

Economics and Social Research Council Studentship funded

 

MRes (Business and Public Management Research) Glasgow Caledonian University, UK (2004)

Departmental Studentship Funded

 

BA International Relations & Politics (Hons), Coventry University, UK (2003)

Other Writing and Interests

I also write creative work including amateur short fiction and film, some of which can be seen on this website alongside my academic work. I also am learning to paint with watercolours and walking my dog Tozi who spends too much time on Twitter.

 

Contact

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