This eye-opening documentary sheds light on the rising phenomenon of “fake news” in the U.S. and the real-life threat that disinformation, conspiracy theories and false news stories have on the average citizen.
Bad Advice: Or Why Celebrities, Politicians, and Activists Aren't Your Best Source of Health Information by
A guide to taking on self-appointed activists and quack experts offers hard-earned wisdom on the dos and don'ts of battling misinformation, by a science and public health professional who has been on the frontline for twenty years. Scientists are often unable to package their insights into the neat narratives that the public requires. Enter celebrities, advocates, lobbyists-- people taking advantage of scientists' reluctance to provide easy answers, flooding the media with misleading or incorrect claims about health risks. Offit shares hard-earned wisdom on the dos and don'ts of battling misinformation. He discusses the manias stoked by charlatans and their miracle cures, as well as corrosive, dangerous ideologies such as Holocaust and climate-change denial.
The Death of Truth by
We live in a time when the very idea of objective truth is mocked and discounted by the occupants of the White House. Discredited conspiracy theories and ideologies have resurfaced, proven science is once more up for debate, and Russian propaganda floods our screens. The wisdom of the crowd has usurped research and expertise, and we are each left clinging to the beliefs that best confirm our biases. How did truth become an endangered species in contemporary America? Former New York Times critic Michiko Kakutani takes a penetrating look at the cultural forces that contributed to this gathering storm. In social media and literature, television, academia, and politics, Kakutani identifies the trends -- originating on both the right and the left -- that have combined to elevate subjectivity over factuality, science, and common values. And she returns us to the words of the great critics of authoritarianism, writers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt, whose work is newly and eerily relevant.
Evaluating Media Bias by
Media bias has been a hot-button issue for several decades, and it features prominently in the post 2016 political conversation. Yet it receives only spotty treatment in existing materials aimed at political communication or introductory American politics courses. Evaluating Media Bias is a brief, supplemental resource that provides an academically informed but broadly accessible overview of the major concepts and controversies involving media bias. Adam Schiffer explores the contours of the partisan-bias debate before highlighting the more consequential shortcomings plaguing American political news. He also takes an in-depth look at the media's role in the 2016 Republican primary and discusses the most notable news controversies that arose in the aftermath of the general election. Engaging and informative, this text reviews what we know about media bias, offers timely case studies as illustration, and introduces an original framework for unifying diverse conversations about the shortcomings of political news
Factfulness by
When asked simple questions about global trends--what percentage of the world's population live in poverty; why the world's population is increasing; how many girls finish school -- we systematically get the answers wrong. So wrong that a chimpanzee choosing answers at random will consistently outguess teachers, journalists, Nobel laureates, and investment bankers. Professor and TED presenter Hans Rosling, together with his two long-time collaborators, Anna and Ola, offers a radical explanation of why this happens. They reveal the ten instincts that distort our perspective, from our tendency to divide the world into two camps (usually some version of us and them) to the way we consume media (where fear rules) to how we perceive progress (believing that most things are getting worse). Our problem is that we don't know what we don't know, and even our guesses are informed by unconscious and predictable biases. It turns out that the world, for all its imperfections, is in a much better state than we might think. That doesn't mean there aren't real concerns. But when we worry about everything all the time instead of embracing a worldview based on facts, we can lose our ability to focus on the things that threaten us most.
Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies by
Fake News, Propaganda, and Plain Old Lies explains how to identify deceptive information and seek out the most trustworthy information to inform decision making in your personal, academic, professional, and civic lives. Barclay takes an objective, non-partisan approach to the topic of sorting deceptive information from trustworthy information.
The Fifth Estate by
The influence of what is known as The Fifth Estate, which is viewpoints and journalism generated outside of the mainstream press, has risen thanks to the emergence of blogs and social media. How effective are these alternate sources in raising public consciousness, changing government policy, and stirring grassroots movements? Are they held to the same standards as mainstream journalism? In this age of fake news, WikiLeaks, and the president's so-called war on the press, readers will find the varied and provocative viewpoints that are explained in this book incredibly relevant and enlightening.
Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics by
This book examines the shape, composition, and practices of the United States political media landscape. It explores the roots of the current epistemic crisis in political communication with a focus on the remarkable 2016 U.S. president election culminating in the victory of Donald Trump and the first year of his presidency. The authors present a detailed map of the American political media landscape based on the analysis of millions of stories and social media posts, revealing a highly polarized and asymmetric media ecosystem. Detailed case studies track the emergence and propagation of disinformation in the American public sphere that took advantage of structural weaknesses in the media institutions across the political spectrum. This book describes how the conservative faction led by Steve Bannon and funded by Robert Mercer was able to inject opposition research into the mainstream media agenda that left an unsubstantiated but indelible stain of corruption on the Clinton campaign. The authors also document how Fox News deflects negative coverage of President Trump and has promoted a series of exaggerated and fabricated counter narratives to defend the president against the damaging news coming out of the Mueller investigation. Based on an analysis of the actors that sought to influence political public discourse, this book argues that the current problems of media and democracy are not the result of Russian interference, behavioral microtargeting and algorithms on social media, political clickbait, hackers, sockpuppets, or trolls, but of asymmetric media structures decades in the making. The crisis is political, not technological.
Post-Truth by
How we arrived in a post-truth era, when "alternative facts" replace actual facts, and feelings have more weight than evidence.
Are we living in a post-truth world, where "alternative facts" replace actual facts and feelings have more weight than evidence? How did we get here? In this volume in the MIT Press Essential Knowledge series, Lee McIntyre traces the development of the post-truth phenomenon from science denial through the rise of "fake news," from our psychological blind spots to the public's retreat into "information silos."
What, exactly, is post-truth? Is it wishful thinking, political spin, mass delusion, bold-faced lying? McIntyre analyzes recent examples--claims about inauguration crowd size, crime statistics, and the popular vote--and finds that post-truth is an assertion of ideological supremacy by which its practitioners try to compel someone to believe something regardless of the evidence. Yet post-truth didn't begin with the 2016 election; the denial of scientific facts about smoking, evolution, vaccines, and climate change offers a road map for more widespread fact denial. Add to this the wired-in cognitive biases that make us feel that our conclusions are based on good reasoning even when they are not, the decline of traditional media and the rise of social media, and the emergence of fake news as a political tool, and we have the ideal conditions for post-truth. McIntyre also argues provocatively that the right wing borrowed from postmodernism--specifically, the idea that there is no such thing as objective truth--in its attacks on science and facts.
McIntyre argues that we can fight post-truth, and that the first step in fighting post-truth is to understand it.
Reference Shelf: Alternative Facts, Post-Truth and the Information War by
A historical perspective -- Truth is what you fake of it / The fake news fallacy / The evangelical roots of our post-truth society / Do social media threaten democracy? / Language: the most disruptive technology / Bad actors in the information war -- Offenders in the information war / The new information warfare / Why is Finland able to fend off Putin's information war? / We tracked down a fake-news creator in the suburbs: here's what we learned / Tone-deaf: how Facebook misread American's mood on Russia / Media vs. the algorithm -- The interest equation / Facebook and Twitter are being used to manipulate public opinion--report / How Facebook, Google and Twitter "embeds" helped Trump in 2016 / Don't blame the election on fake news; blame it on the media / Don't let liberals end opinion diversity under cover of "fake news" campaign / News coverage says a study claimed fake news on Facebook didn't affect the election / "Post-truth" media really is shifting the news agenda--and more subtly than it seems / Trump's "fake news awards" fail to live up to the hype--or the hysteria / Fake news and your health -- Fallacies, bias and the post-truth mind / Post-truth: the dark side of the brain / The new psychology of fake news / Yes, I'd lie to you / Next generation news consumers -- Solutions to the misinformation age / Echo chambers are dangerous--we must try to break free of our online bubbles / Making media literacy great again / The remedy for the spread of fake news? History teachers / Can AI win the war against fake news? / The problem with facts / We already have a solution to fake news: it's called the First Amendment
The Skeptics' Guide to the Universe by
It is intimidating to realize that we live in a world overflowing with misinformation, bias, myths, deception, and flawed knowledge. There really are no ultimate authority figures--no one has the secret, and there is no place to look up the definitive answers to our questions (not even Google). Luckily, THE SKEPTICS' GUIDE TO THE UNIVERSE is your map through this maze of modern life. Here Dr. Steven Novella--along with Bob Novella, Cara Santa Maria, Jay Novella, and Evan Bernstein--will explain the tenets of skeptical thinking and debunk some of the biggest scientific myths, fallacies, and conspiracy theories--from anti-vaccines to homeopathy, UFO sightings to N-rays. You'll learn the difference between science and pseudoscience, essential critical thinking skills, ways to discuss conspiracy theories with that crazy co-worker of yours, and how to combat sloppy reasoning, bad arguments, and superstitious thinking. "--Amazon.com. We live in a world overflowing with misinformation, bias, myths, deception, and flawed knowledge. There really are no ultimate authority figures--no one has the secret, and there is no place to look up the definitive answers to our questions (not even Google). In this book, the authors explain the tenets of skeptical thinking, and debunk some of the biggest scientific myths, fallacies, and conspiracy theories. You'll learn critical thinking skills, and how to combat sloppy reasoning, bad arguments, and superstitious thinking.
Weaponized Lies by
We're surrounded by fringe theories, fake news, and pseudo-facts. These lies are getting repeated. New York Times bestselling author Daniel Levitin shows how to disarm these socially devastating inventions and get the American mind back on track. Here are the fundamental lessons in critical thinking that we need to know and share now.
Investigating numerical misinformation, Daniel Levitin shows how mishandled statistics and graphs can give a grossly distorted perspective and lead us to terrible decisions. Wordy arguments on the other hand can easily be persuasive as they drift away from the facts in an appealing yet misguided way. The steps we can take to better evaluate news, advertisements, and reports are clearly detailed. Ultimately, Levitin turns to what underlies our ability to determine if something is true or false: the scientific method. He grapples with the limits of what we can and cannot know. Case studies are offered to demonstrate the applications of logical thinking to quite varied settings, spanning courtroom testimony, medical decision making, magic, modern physics, and conspiracy theories.
This urgently needed book enables us to avoid the extremes of passive gullibility and cynical rejection. As Levitin attests: Truth matters. A post-truth era is an era of willful irrationality, reversing all the great advances humankind has made. Euphemisms like "fringe theories," "extreme views," "alt truth," and even "fake news" can literally be dangerous. Let's call lies what they are and catch those making them in the act.