Brendan Lawson
Biographic Data
| ID | 4501020 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brendan Lawson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brendan |
| FAMILY NAME | Lawson |
| SIGNATURE | LAWSON B |
| AFFILIATIONS | Loughborough University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3228-6245 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 15 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 15 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 15 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Credibility as a Double-Edged Sword
Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information’s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on U.K. WhatsApp users ( N = 2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significa…
CO2e (best) avoided? How people experience CO2e avoided on the Too Good To Go app
Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) avoided is increasingly communicated to individuals through digital media. Too Good To Go – a food waste app – presents users with a personalised CO2e avoided figure. Each time they collect food from a supermarket, café or restaurant their number increases. How do users experience CO2e avoided on the app? We explore this question through a longitudinal research project with 10 households in Oxfordshire, involving …
The trustworthiness of peers and public discourse
Numbers are essential to how citizens understand the world, but also have distinctive power to confuse or manipulate. Numerical claims permeate online dis/misinformation, yet relatively little is known about how people engage with them. We conducted in-depth interviews (W1N = 102, W2N = 80) to explore how people gauge the trustworthiness of numbers on personal messaging platforms – highly popular yet difficult-to-research online spaces. Adopting …
Unpacking credibility evaluation on digital media
We argue for more serious consideration of interpretive qualitative approaches in research on information credibility evaluation in digitally mediated contexts. Through reviewing existing literature on credibility and drawing on our own experiences of conducting research projects on credibility evaluation in diverse cultural contexts, we contend that interpretive qualitative approaches help researchers develop a much-needed communicative and rela…
The Life of a Number
Ten Things We Know about Humanitarian Numbers
The modern humanitarian sector is gripped by a data frenzy. How can we take a step back and critically engage with what datafication means? This introduction to the special section begins by outlining three broad theoretical positions within the literature: positivist, constructivist, and reflexivity of actors. To dive deeper, and to tie together the four pieces in this special section, we point to ‘ten things we know about humanitarian numbers’.…
Humanitarian Numbers in the Russian–Ukrainian War
In this interview, Irina Mützelburg discusses the production and spreading of humanitarian numbers in the on-going Russian–Ukrainian war since February 2022. She traces the emergence of the announced number of Ukrainian refugees several months before the beginning of the full-scale invasion and analyses the ways in which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) compile statis…
How journalists do memory work with numbers
This paper explores the relationship between memory, journalism and numbers. It does so through a case study that examines how the Colombian news media reported on a particular figure during a peace negotiation: the 220,000 people who died because of the armed conflict in Colombia. The number was produced by the National Centre for Historical Memory in 2013 in a comprehensive report about the ravages of the Colombian conflict (1958–2012). Followi…
Life of a Number
Re-imagining the quantitative-qualitative relationship through colouring and anchoring
Across journalism, numbers and non-numbers are used in conjunction with each other in the process of storytelling. When literature within journalism studies examines this relationship, it tends to focus on how numbers contextualise the specific anecdote or how numbers provide scale to individual accounts. Both explanations rest on a specific-general paradigm that underpins much of the way academics research and theorise the topic. In this article…
Realizing the benefits of open government data
In the current literature on open government data (OGD) ecosystems, academics have paid little attention to the way data journalists realize the benefits of publicly-available data. To address this, in this study I use content analysis (n = 65), thematic analysis, and interviews with journalists (n = 5) to examine how the news media used data in their reporting during the NHS (National Health Service, UK) winter crisis of 2016–2017. The findings …
Quantification and Humanitarianism
Over the past 25 years, the humanitarian sector has become increasingly dominated by numbers. This has been reflected in the growth of academic work that explores this relationship between humanitarianism and quantification. The most recent contribution to this literature is Joël Glasman’s Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Humanitarian Needs . Through his empirical and theoretical contributions, Glasman draws our attention to the differen…
Towards a rhetorical understanding of statistics in politics
Statistics are a central part of political communication, yet little is known about how they are used rhetorically by politicians. This article therefore develops a rhetorical understanding of statistics in political debate and explores how they function primarily as strategies of argumentation. Through an analysis of how British politicians use numbers in debates on the National Health Service ‘winter crisis’, it is argued that four tropes under…
Hiding Behind Databases, Institutions and Actors
Numbers have long been central to the practice of journalism. But most journalists use numbers with relatively little critical engagement. This practice presents journalists with a dilemma: how can they, and their stories, maintain their credibility when such key pieces of information are not verified? This article takes a mixed-method approach to journalists’ use of numbers in their coverage of seven humanitarian crises in 2017. This includes a …
Legitimizing military action through statistics and discourse in the 2014 IDF assault on Gaza
This article analyses the way statistics were used by select British and South African news outlets in the coverage of the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. Taking asymmetrical warfare as their primary theoretical framework, we used a content analysis and interviews with journalists to uncover specific patterns and imbalances in the coverage. Within the text of the articles, we observed the way numbers served to legitimize Israeli attacks and de-legi…
Hiding Behind Databases, Institutions and Actors
Numbers have long been central to the practice of journalism. But most journalists use numbers with relatively little critical engagement. This practice presents journalists with a dilemma: how can they, and their stories, maintain their credibility when such key pieces of information are not verified? This article takes a mixed-method approach to journalists’ use of numbers in their coverage of seven humanitarian crises in 2017. This includes a …
Legitimizing military action through statistics and discourse in the 2014 IDF assault on Gaza
This article analyses the way statistics were used by select British and South African news outlets in the coverage of the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. Taking asymmetrical warfare as their primary theoretical framework, we used a content analysis and interviews with journalists to uncover specific patterns and imbalances in the coverage. Within the text of the articles, we observed the way numbers served to legitimize Israeli attacks and de-legi…
Towards a rhetorical understanding of statistics in politics
Statistics are a central part of political communication, yet little is known about how they are used rhetorically by politicians. This article therefore develops a rhetorical understanding of statistics in political debate and explores how they function primarily as strategies of argumentation. Through an analysis of how British politicians use numbers in debates on the National Health Service ‘winter crisis’, it is argued that four tropes under…
Legitimizing military action through statistics and discourse in the 2014 IDF assault on Gaza
This article analyses the way statistics were used by select British and South African news outlets in the coverage of the 2014 Israeli assault on Gaza. Taking asymmetrical warfare as their primary theoretical framework, we used a content analysis and interviews with journalists to uncover specific patterns and imbalances in the coverage. Within the text of the articles, we observed the way numbers served to legitimize Israeli attacks and de-legi…
Quantification and Humanitarianism
Over the past 25 years, the humanitarian sector has become increasingly dominated by numbers. This has been reflected in the growth of academic work that explores this relationship between humanitarianism and quantification. The most recent contribution to this literature is Joël Glasman’s Humanitarianism and the Quantification of Humanitarian Needs . Through his empirical and theoretical contributions, Glasman draws our attention to the differen…
Towards a rhetorical understanding of statistics in politics
Statistics are a central part of political communication, yet little is known about how they are used rhetorically by politicians. This article therefore develops a rhetorical understanding of statistics in political debate and explores how they function primarily as strategies of argumentation. Through an analysis of how British politicians use numbers in debates on the National Health Service ‘winter crisis’, it is argued that four tropes under…
Hiding Behind Databases, Institutions and Actors
Numbers have long been central to the practice of journalism. But most journalists use numbers with relatively little critical engagement. This practice presents journalists with a dilemma: how can they, and their stories, maintain their credibility when such key pieces of information are not verified? This article takes a mixed-method approach to journalists’ use of numbers in their coverage of seven humanitarian crises in 2017. This includes a …
Re-imagining the quantitative-qualitative relationship through colouring and anchoring
Across journalism, numbers and non-numbers are used in conjunction with each other in the process of storytelling. When literature within journalism studies examines this relationship, it tends to focus on how numbers contextualise the specific anecdote or how numbers provide scale to individual accounts. Both explanations rest on a specific-general paradigm that underpins much of the way academics research and theorise the topic. In this article…
Realizing the benefits of open government data
In the current literature on open government data (OGD) ecosystems, academics have paid little attention to the way data journalists realize the benefits of publicly-available data. To address this, in this study I use content analysis (n = 65), thematic analysis, and interviews with journalists (n = 5) to examine how the news media used data in their reporting during the NHS (National Health Service, UK) winter crisis of 2016–2017. The findings …
The Life of a Number
Ten Things We Know about Humanitarian Numbers
The modern humanitarian sector is gripped by a data frenzy. How can we take a step back and critically engage with what datafication means? This introduction to the special section begins by outlining three broad theoretical positions within the literature: positivist, constructivist, and reflexivity of actors. To dive deeper, and to tie together the four pieces in this special section, we point to ‘ten things we know about humanitarian numbers’.…
Humanitarian Numbers in the Russian–Ukrainian War
In this interview, Irina Mützelburg discusses the production and spreading of humanitarian numbers in the on-going Russian–Ukrainian war since February 2022. She traces the emergence of the announced number of Ukrainian refugees several months before the beginning of the full-scale invasion and analyses the ways in which the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM) compile statis…
How journalists do memory work with numbers
This paper explores the relationship between memory, journalism and numbers. It does so through a case study that examines how the Colombian news media reported on a particular figure during a peace negotiation: the 220,000 people who died because of the armed conflict in Colombia. The number was produced by the National Centre for Historical Memory in 2013 in a comprehensive report about the ravages of the Colombian conflict (1958–2012). Followi…
Life of a Number
CO2e (best) avoided? How people experience CO2e avoided on the Too Good To Go app
Carbon Dioxide Equivalent (CO2e) avoided is increasingly communicated to individuals through digital media. Too Good To Go – a food waste app – presents users with a personalised CO2e avoided figure. Each time they collect food from a supermarket, café or restaurant their number increases. How do users experience CO2e avoided on the app? We explore this question through a longitudinal research project with 10 households in Oxfordshire, involving …
The trustworthiness of peers and public discourse
Numbers are essential to how citizens understand the world, but also have distinctive power to confuse or manipulate. Numerical claims permeate online dis/misinformation, yet relatively little is known about how people engage with them. We conducted in-depth interviews (W1N = 102, W2N = 80) to explore how people gauge the trustworthiness of numbers on personal messaging platforms – highly popular yet difficult-to-research online spaces. Adopting …
Unpacking credibility evaluation on digital media
We argue for more serious consideration of interpretive qualitative approaches in research on information credibility evaluation in digitally mediated contexts. Through reviewing existing literature on credibility and drawing on our own experiences of conducting research projects on credibility evaluation in diverse cultural contexts, we contend that interpretive qualitative approaches help researchers develop a much-needed communicative and rela…
Credibility as a Double-Edged Sword
Disinformation often features reputable sources to boost false information’s credibility, but does this deceptive source misattribution shape its spread on personal messaging? In a preregistered between-subjects survey experiment on U.K. WhatsApp users ( N = 2,580), we showed participants WhatsApp messages containing true or false news attributed to either British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) News or no source. Attribution to BBC News significa…
Political science (12 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Law (8 works) · Social science (7 works) · Epistemology (6 works) · Misinformation and Its Impacts (4 works) · Public relations (4 works) · World Wide Web (4 works) · Credibility (3 works)