International Summer School

Once you have been offered a place on the programme, we will contact you and ask you to submit your top three research project choices. You may select projects from more than one humanities subject area (History, Archaeology, Scottish Studies, Classics, Information Studies, Philosophy, and Gender Studies). Your allocated research project will be confirmed in April.

1. Understanding Misinformation: Perspectives from Philosophy 
2. The Philosophy of Trusting Chat GPT 
3. Mainstream, Alternative, Social: News across Media in the Information Age 

1. Understanding Misinformation: Perspectives from Philosophy
Supervisor: Guillaume Andrieux

Misinformation is a social and political concern of our age. This project invites students to investigate misinformation from a social epistemic perspective, focusing on how we learn from (and trust) others.

Working with their supervisor, students may design their project from various angles. They may re-examine our preconceptions about misinformation, as recent research suggests that this phenomenon extends beyond outright lies to include misleading truths and strategic omissions. For example, an accurate crime statistic presented without mentioning that overall crime rates are falling might be misinformation. Students may also explore effects on communities as misinformation can prevent audiences from getting knowledge and disrupt their ability to evaluate evidence. Or projects may research why prolonged exposure to misinformation can erode trust in media, scientific or democratic institutions.
Case studies can provide valuable examples, and students are above all encouraged to approach their projects through philosophical methods: clarifying key concepts, organising distinctions and developing a theoretical argument.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Bernecker, S. et al. (eds). 2021. ‘Introduction’, in The Epistemology of Fake News (Oxford University Press), doi:10.1093/oso/9780198863977.003.0001
• Hannon, M. and J. de Ridder (eds). 2021. The Routledge Handbook of Political Epistemology (Routledge), doi:10.4324/9780429326769 [Especially Part 3]
• Harris, K. R. 2023. ‘Beyond Belief: On Disinformation and Manipulation’, Erkenntnis, 90.2, pp. 483–503, doi:10.1007/s10670-023-00710-6
• Harris, K. R. 2022. ‘Real Fakes: The Epistemology of Online Misinformation’, Philosophy & Technology, 35.3, doi:10.1007/s13347-022-00581-9
• Nguyen, C. T. 2020. ‘Echo Chambers and Epistemic Bubbles’, Episteme, 17.2, pp. 141–61, doi:10.1017/epi.2018.32
• Ridder, J. de. 2024. ‘What’s so Bad about Misinformation?’, Inquiry, 67.9, pp. 2956–78, doi:10.1080/0020174X.2021.2002187
• Weatherall, J. O. and C. O’Connor. 2024. ‘Fake News!’, Philosophy Compass, 19.6, doi:10.1111/phc3.13005

2. The Philosophy of Trusting Chat GPT
Supervisor: Giorgia Foti

‘How do you know?’ ‘Chat GPT told me!’ People increasingly get their knowledge from Large Language Models (LLMs) such as Chat GPT. This project invites students to examine whether and how we should trust information produced by such LLMs.

Students may explore accessible real-world cases (from their own experience and from scholarly literature) in which ChatGPT may be seen to invent references, answer confidently but incorrectly, or accept false assumptions in a question. Examples can be examined through key philosophical ideas in social epistemology (the study of how we share knowledge), including trust, testimony, reliability and epistemic vigilance. Working with their supervisor, students may compare information from ChatGPT with human testimony: are they similar or importantly different? Alternatively, projects may use philosophical methods to consider whether a non-human agent can be held accountable for outputs, and whether norms governing human communication should be extended, revised, or abandoned when dealing with non-human communicative systems like ChatGPT.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Freiman, O. 2024. ‘Analysis of Beliefs Acquired from a Conversational AI: Instruments-based Beliefs, Testimony-based Beliefs, and Technology-based Beliefs’, Episteme, 21.3, pp. 1031–1047. https://doi.org/10.1017/epi.2023.12
• He, J. and C. Yang. 2025. ‘Testimony by LLMs’, AI & Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00146-025-02366-y
• Hicks, M.T. et al. 2024. ‘ChatGPT is bullshit’, Ethics Inf Technol 26.38. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-024-09775-5
• Nagel, J. 2014. Knowledge: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press). Chapter 6 on Testimony
• O’Connor, C. et al. 2024. ‘Social Epistemology’, in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Summer 2024 Edition), ed. by E. N. Zalta and U. Nodelman. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/sum2024/entries/epistemology-social/
• Weiser, B. 2023. ‘Here’s what happens when your lawyer uses ChatGPT’. New York Times, May 23, 2023. https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/27/nyregion/avianca-airline-lawsuit-chatgpt.html.
• Zhang. M. et al. 2023. ‘How language model hallucinations can snowball’. ArXiv preprint: https://arxiv.org/abs/2305.13534

3. Mainstream, Alternative, Social: News across Media in the Information Age
Supervisor: Aylwyn Napier

This topic invites students to explore the transformation in journalistic practice that has taken place in the information age. Social media and digital video platforming, alongside the decline in traditional television audiences, have caused a seismic shift in how information and news are provided and disseminated.

Working with their supervisor, students formulate a research project to investigate how delivery of a chosen news story/stories may vary across different platforms (mainstream news media, alternative/independent content provider, social media platform). Projects may consider the theoretical grounding behind different presentations of the same story, or examine different audiences and their needs, and diverse responses to public service broadcasting, commercial media enterprise and user-generated content. Projects may, for example, consider misinformation, disinformation, and fake news within dissemination of a particular story, or the role of the ‘citizen journalist’. Students are able to examine the role and impact of information dissemination in society through the study of journalistic practice.

Indicative preliminary reading

• Christians, C.G. et al, 2008. Normative Theories of the Media: Journalism in Democratic Societies (University of Illinois Press)
  Steensen, S. and L. Ahva (eds), 2014. Journalism Practice, 9.1, special issue on ‘Theories of Journalism in a Digital Age’, including the introduction by the editors: ‘Theories of Journalism in a Digital Age: An exploration and introduction’, pp. 1- 18. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2014.928454
• Bradshaw, P. 2024. ‘Histories, futures, and the changing business and technologies of journalism’, in The Online Journalism Handbook: Skills to Survive and Thrive in the Digital Age, ed. by P. Bradshaw (Routledge), pp. 3–43
• Hermida, A. 2016. ‘Social media and the news’, in The SAGE Handbook of Digital Journalism, ed. by J. Burgess (Sage) pp. 81–94, doi: 10.4135/9781473957909.n6.
• Ihlebæk, K.A. and T.U. Figenschou. 2024. ‘Challengers in the journalistic field – a study of alternative media and their relations to incumbents, governance units, the state, and each other’, Journalism, doi: 10.1177/14648849241309848.
• Klinenberg, E. 2005. ‘Convergence: news production in a digital age’, The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 597, pp. 48–64, doi: 10.1177/0002716204270346.
• Lewis, H. 2024. ‘The “mainstream media” has already lost’, The Atlantic, https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2025/01/joe-rogan-political-right-media-mainstream/680755/.

Primary Sources

• Ofcom, 2025. News Consumption in the UK, https://www.ofcom.org.uk/media-use-and-attitudes/attitudes-to-news/news-consumption
• Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, 2025. Digital News Report 2025, https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/digital-news-report/2025

This course aims to:

• Provide an opportunity to undertake an independent research project in the Humanities under supervision.
• Introduce approaches to research and analysis in the Humanities
• Develop professional skills in research and analysis and transferable skills in oral and written argument.

 By the end of this course you will be able to:

• Assess scholarly literature and available sources to formulate a viable research question in the Humanities
• Contextualise and critically analyse sources to produce a convincing argument
• Express analysis and argument in written and oral forms

Weekly seminars specific to humanities (these may include group visits to the Glasgow University and Hunterian collections, as well as the course conference) and twice weekly supervisor meetings.

• GPA of 3.0 (or equivalent)
• you should be currently enrolled at an international higher education institution.
• two years of study in university-level Humanities courses with a major or minor in a relevant subject (Applicants who have only attended university for one year will be considered if strong performance in a relevant Humanities subject can be demonstrated).

If your first language is not English, you must meet our minimum proficiency level:

• International English Language Testing System (IELTS) Academic module (not General Training) overall score of 6.0, with no sub test less than 5.5
• we also accept equivalent scores in other recognised qualifications such as ibTOEFL, CAE, CPE and more.

This is a guide, for further information email internationalsummerschools@gla.systa-s.com