Sign In

Joe Ondrak

Research, Techology and Policy lead at Logically - Using OSINT methodologies and strategic narratology to counteract online disinformation and extremism

Joe Ondrak is the Research, Technology, and Policy Lead at Logically, where he specializes in large-scale research projects focused on extremist threat detection and narrative tracing for countermeasures against online disinformation. He employs Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) methodologies and strategic narratology to address these challenges.1

He holds a PhD and a master's degree by research from the University of Sheffield, with a background in English language and literature. His academic work includes investigations into digital fiction, particularly in the context of horror genres like creepypasta.2

Highlights

Oct 30 · linkedin

Today is the 85th anniversary of one of the greatest examples of the power mediated communication has to mislead, to terrify, and to cause panic.

Orson Welles' 1938 CBS radio play of War of the Worlds is now media, sci-fi, and horror legend as stories of listeners tuning in midway through the story, told as news bulletins, mistook the performance for reports of a real alien invasion.

However, this legend itself is likely to be an example of rumor, news, and word of mouth. The drama had a comparatively low audience for the (now very much inflated) figures of mass panic and confusion. Newspapers spread "mass panic" headlines soon after the play had ended, holding up the alleged panic as an example of the dangers of using the new medium of radio rather than paper to deliver the news.

After the play aired, the US newspaper trade journal warned that "the nation as a whole continues to face the danger of incomplete, misunderstood news over a medium which has yet to prove […] that it is competent to perform the news job."

While the papers, in propagating the myth of Welles' mass panic, may have been guilty of their own accusations, the warning about media, news, and belief rings loud over the internet today. Similarly prescient is the complete story's lesson about the news' own agenda, about myths and their persistence through time to become assumed truths.

Oct 27 · linkedin

Well, it's been a while since I've logged on here. I've had a spring-clean, updated my profile, managed my network and all that good stuff.

However, I am most pleased to announce that my PhD thesis is now available as an open-access document!

"Digesting creepypasta: social media horror narratives as gothic fourth-generation digital fiction" examines, recontextualises, and provides a new methodology for analysing a collection of Internet phenomena known as ‘Creepypasta’. Critically engaging with its form and participation in the Gothic and horror literary traditions, I argue that creepypasta should be considered as an emergent genre that manifests through the form of digital fiction and derives a renewed horror and Gothic affect through that form. Existing as unnerving tales written for and spread across social media and Web2.0 websites, creepypasta is an acknowledged, but under-studied genre of fiction.

Key here is the centering of form as a factor in affect, a concept I believe has widespread applications, not only in digital fiction analysis, but semantic threat analysis and disinformation research.

My DMs are open to discuss more.

Related Questions

What are some of Joe Ondrak's notable research projects at Logically?
How does Joe Ondrak use OSINT methodologies in his work?
What is narrative tracing/mapping, and how does Joe Ondrak apply it?
What is Joe Ondrak's background in English language and literature relevant to his current role?
How does Joe Ondrak's work contribute to counteracting online disinformation?
Joe Ondrak
Joe Ondrak, photo 1
Joe Ondrak, photo 2
Add to my network

Location

Wolverhampton, England, United Kingdom