Data show many mainstream print media outlets are growing their readership - but it would be worrying if this was because they are aping what happens on social media.
Not everyone voicing suspicion of mainstream media is a conspiracy theorist – we need to guard against the far right monopolising the terms of media criticism.
Press-bashing was a feature of the years Trump was president. But a new, more constructive kind of press criticism has also emerged that aims to improve journalism, not delegitimize it.
Scandals are violent shocks to social systems, yet not all questionable behaviour produces scandal. How can we explain that some figures escape the consequences of their own behavior while others don’t?
In Kenneth Burke’s ‘The War of Words,’ the late rhetorical theorist picks apart the little ways news articles can subtly influence readers – and harden divisions.
It’s not just the US which is seeing a rise in support for neo-Nazi organisations and right-wing politics. In Scandinavia it’s infiltrating the mainstream.
It’s election time and all the political parties are locked in a social media battle. But does it help inform political debate or just cause even more confusion?
In Africa, the idea of a post-truth era - which by implication fundamentally presupposes the existence of an era in which ‘truth’ was self-evident - is folly.