SOC 204 : Becker

This Element takes on two related questions: How do the media cover the issue of misinformation, and how does exposure to this coverage affect public perceptions, including trust? A content analysis shows that most media coverage explicitly blames social media for the problem, and two experiments find that while exposure to news coverage of misinformation makes people less trusting of news on social media, it increases trust in print news. This counterintuitive effect occurs because exposure to news about misinformation increases the perceived value of traditional journalistic norms. Finally, exposure to misinformation coverage has no measurable effect on political trust or internal efficacy, and political interest is a strong predictor of interest in news coverage of misinformation across partisan lines. These results suggest that many Americans see legacy media as a bulwark against changes that threaten to distort the information environment.

What is "misinformation"? Why does it matter? How does it spread on the internet, especially on social media platforms? What can we do to counteract the worst of its effects? Can we counteract its effects now that it is ubiquitous? These are the questions we answer in this book. We are living in an information age (specifically an "algorithmic age") which prioritizes information "quantity" over "quality". Social media has brought billions of people from across the world together online and the impact of diverse platforms, such as Facebook, WeChat, Reddit, LinkedIn, Signal, WhatsApp, Gab, Instagram, Telegram, and Snapchat, has been transformational. The internet was created, with the best of intentions, as an online space where written content could be created, consumed and diffused without any real intermediary. This empowering aspect of the web is still, mostly, a force for good. People, on the whole, are better informed and online discussion is more inclusive because barriers to participation are reduced. As activity online has grown, however, an expanding catalogue of research reveals a darker side to social media, and the internet generally. Namely, misinformation's ability to negatively influence our behaviour both online and offline. The solution we provide to this growing dilemma is informed by Ludwig Wittgenstein's Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, which examines the relationship between language and reality from a philosophical perspective, and complements Claude Shannon's Information Quantity Theory, which addresses the quantification, storage and communication of digital information from a mathematical perspective. The book ends by setting out a model designed by us: a "Wittgensteinian" approach to information quality. It defines content published online by clarifying the propositions and claims made within it. Our model's online information quality check allows users to effectively analyse the quality of trending online content. This approach to misinformation analysis and prevention has been designed to be both easy to use and pragmatic. It upholds freedom of speech online while using the "harm principle" to categorise problematic content.

This volume recounts notable episodes of distortion throughout American media history. It examines several of the lurid hoaxes and conspiracy theories that have inspired press coverage, as well as some of the political lies promoted by partisan gladiators, whether of the eighteenth century or today. The book moves beyond the sensational stories to show the enduring and systemic nature of media manipulation that occurs on far more consequential issues. It exposes persistent and deeply destructive falsehoods that have been told about women, people of color, immigrants, the LGBTQ+ community, unions, commercial products, highlighting how longstanding "bipartisan" myths have effectively marginalized certain groups of Americans. Alongside these cases, the author carefully dissects the changing nature of institutions, technologies, and practices of journalism in America. Attention is given to the evolution of newspapers in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, the role of broadcasting in the twentieth, and the impact of the internet and social media at the dawn of the twenty-first. This book will appeal to readers interested in American history, journalism, communication studies, political science and sociology.

This book explores the pervasive and globalised trajectory of domestic disinformation. It describes specific operations and general apparatuses of disinformation that are sponsored by the State institutions in several countries around the world, such as governments, political parties, and politicians. With an international team of expert authors, this volume meticulously scrutinises instances of State-sponsored disinformation across a diverse spectrum of 14 countries encompassing Western and Eastern Europe, North and Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. It examines how political landscapes amplify or constrain disinformation, advancing a comprehensive understanding of its dynamics in the contemporary global milieu. The book is organised in three sections that gather case studies from democratic, non-democratic, and transitional regimes. Advancing the field of misinformation and disinformation studies by specialising in State-sponsored operations and their consequences, this book will be an essential volume for scholars and upper-level students of media and communication studies, journalism, political communication, disinformation and misinformation, social media, sociology, and international politics. The Open Access version of this book, available at http://www.taylorfrancis.com, has been made available under a Creative Commons [Attribution-Non Commercial-No Derivatives (CC-BY-NC-ND)] 4.0 license

This handbook offers a comprehensive overview of research into discourses of disinformation, misinformation, post-truth, alternative facts, hate speech, conspiracy theories, and "fake news". Divided into two sections, it provides a detailed look at the methodological challenges and approaches for studying disinformation, along with a wide range of case studies covering everything from climate change denial to COVID-19 conspiracies. The studies address how discourses of disinformation are constructed and developed, what rhetorical and persuasive strategies they employ, how disinformation can be discerned from real news, and what steps we might take in order to create a more trustworthy news environment. Authored by leading experts from around the world, and showcasing the most up-to-date methodological approaches to the topic, the volume makes a significant contribution to current linguistic research on politics, and is an essential guide to the discourses of disinformation for advanced students and researchers of English language studies, linguistics, and media and communication studies.

A Next Big Idea Club "Must Read" for December 2023 As all aspects of our social and informational lives increasingly migrate online, the line between what is "real" and what is digitally fabricated grows ever thinner--and that fake content has undeniable real-world consequences. A History of Fake Things on the Internet takes the long view of how advances in technology brought us to the point where faked texts, images, and video content are nearly indistinguishable from what is authentic or true. Computer scientist Walter J. Scheirer takes a deep dive into the origins of fake news, conspiracy theories, reports of the paranormal, and other deviations from reality that have become part of mainstream culture, from image manipulation in the nineteenth-century darkroom to the literary stylings of large language models like ChatGPT. Scheirer investigates the origins of Internet fakes, from early hoaxes that traversed the globe via Bulletin Board Systems (BBSs), USENET, and a new messaging technology called email, to today's hyperrealistic, AI-generated Deepfakes. An expert in machine learning and recognition, Scheirer breaks down the technical advances that made new developments in digital deception possible, and shares behind-the-screens details of early Internet-era pranks that have become touchstones of hacker lore. His story introduces us to the visionaries and mischief-makers who first deployed digital fakery and continue to influence how digital manipulation works--and doesn't--today: computer hackers, digital artists, media forensics specialists, and AI researchers. Ultimately, Scheirer argues that problems associated with fake content are not intrinsic properties of the content itself, but rather stem from human behavior, demonstrating our capacity for both creativity and destruction.

Pinpoints how "dogwhistles" and "figleaves," two kinds of linguistic trick, distort political discourse and normalize racism It is widely accepted that political discourse in recent years has become more openly racist and more accepting of wildly implausible conspiracy theories. Dogwhistles and Figleaves explores ways in which such changes--both of which defied previously settled norms of political speech--have been brought about. Jennifer Saul shows that two linguistic devices, dogwhistles and figleaves, have played a crucial role. Some dogwhistles (such as "88", used by Nazis online to mean "Heil Hitler") serve to disguise messages that would otherwise be rejected as unacceptable, allowing them to be transmitted surreptitiously. Other dogwhistles (like the 1988 "Willie Horton" ad) work by influencing people in ways that they are not aware of, and which they would likely reject were they aware. Figleaves (such as "just asking questions") take messages that could easily be recognized as unacceptable, and provide just enough cover that people become more willing to accept them. Saul argues that these devices are important for the spread of racist discourse. She also shows how they contribute to the transmission of norm-violating discourse more generally, focusing on the case of wildly implausible conspiracist speech. Together, these devices have both exploited and widened existing divisions in society, and normalized racist and conspiracist speech. This book is the first full-length exploration of dogwhistles and figleaves. It offers an illuminating and disturbing view of the workings of contemporary political discourse.