The work
When COVID-19 arrived with a wave of false and misleading information, one of the first problems was that the field could not agree on what the words even meant. Dr Darrin Baines's work set out to fix that, defining and separating misinformation, disinformation and malinformation, and giving researchers and policymakers clear language to measure and respond to the infodemic.
Key publications
University of Birmingham Discussion Papers
Defining misinformation, disinformation and malinformation: An urgent need for clarity during the COVID-19 infodemic most cited
Infodemic now: how do we know when the news is fake?
The impact
Over 200 citations
Over 200 citations on Google Scholar, 85 indexed on OpenAlex, and counting. His definitional work is cited internationally, across public health and information science, by researchers building directly on it.
Researchers who cite this definitional paper include
Yogesh K. Dwivedi
Swansea University, in the International Journal of Information Management
Malik Sallam
University of Jordan, in PLOS ONE
Mariusz Duplaga
Jagiellonian University, Krakow, in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Shubhangi Rastogi
Punjab Engineering College, in the International Journal of Information Security
Naresh Kumar Agarwal
Simmons University, Boston, in the Aslib Journal of Information Management
Why this is authority
This standing does not rest on a title. It rests on work that other researchers use and build on, in their own published studies, around the world. That is a genuine, verifiable form of expertise, recognised by peers, and it is machine-readable, so search engines and AI can check it directly.