I am a computational social scientist with a background in social research methods, including survey work, social network analysis, and statistical text analysis. I began my career as an applied linguist with a particular interest in how people interpret ambiguous language (especially in literary texts), and have written extensively on the history of media (especially publishing). Today, my research primarily focuses on extremism, hate, and disinformation in the contemporary world, although I retain a strong interest in the historical study of publishing and the media. I am Co-Investigator of Decoding Antisemitism, a three-year project funded by the Alfred Landecker Foundation.

Research Interests and PhD Supervision

• Political ideology
• Hate speech and incitement
• Disinformation and misinformation
• Publishing and media
• Audiences

I am interested in supervising PhD students who take a qualitative or quantitative approach to any of the above areas.

For more details, please see my full research profile.

Teaching

I teach quantitative research methods and introductory data science to undergraduate and postgraduate students, and I’m always pleased to see students put what they learn to good use.

Expertise and Public Engagement

My research on antisemitism and conspiracy theories (including COVID-19 conspiracy theories) has been widely reported in the UK and international press. In 2019, I led one of the teams carrying out primary research for the UK Commission for Countering Extremism. Other organisations with which I have recently worked include Campaign Against Antisemitism, Quilliam International, the Centre for Countering Digital Hate, and the Antisemitism Policy Trust.

Selected Publications

• Allington, D., Duffy, B., Wessely, S., Dhavan, N., and Rubin, J. 2020. Health-protective behaviour, social media usage, and conspiracy belief during the COVID 19 public health emergency. Psychological Medicine (online first). https://doi.org/10.1017/S003329172000224X
• Allington, D. and Joshi, T. 2020. ‘What others dare not say’: an antisemitic conspiracy fantasy and its YouTube audience. Journal of Contemporary Antisemitism 3 (1): 36-53. https://doi.org/10.26613/jca/3.1.42
• Allington, D., Brewer, D.A., Colclough, S., Echard, S., Lesser, Z. 2019. The book in Britain: a historical introduction. Chichester and Hoboken: Wiley Blackwell.