Thoreau spent his life pursuing the ‘hard bottom’ of truth. But he confronted a sensationalist newspaper industry that, in many ways, mimicked today’s media environment.
Louis XIV ‘confesses his sins’ to Pere de la Chaize, 1694.
Anon
Pamphlets, songs and posters were the 17th-century equivalent of social media and just as effective at spreading falsehoods.
This photograph taken in Paris Friday Dec. 2, 2016 shows stories from USA Daily News 24, a fake news site registered in Veles, Macedonia. USA Daily News 24 is one of roughly 200 U.S.-oriented sites registered in Veles. Both stories shown here are bogus.
(AP Photo/Raphael Satter)
News consumers don’t often believe fake news. But it’s nonetheless critical that they learn to gauge the legitimacy of news sources and become aware of their own biases.
Licensing journalists would be difficult to do, and the rules would be tough to enforce – and wouldn’t prevent anyone with a smart phone from disseminating false information online.
From Netflix docuseries Making a Murderer.
Netflix
Reports of facts’ death have been greatly exaggerated. Effective communication jettisons the false dilemma in favor of a more holistic view of how people take in new information on contentious topics.
Research has shown kids can be duped by native advertising.
Syda Productions/Shutterstock
Students in high school now will be eligible to vote during the 2020 election cycle. How can we prepare them to become informed citizens in an era of misinformation, where anyone can publish anything?
Donald Trump might not spend much time on social media, but he has an acute understanding of how virality in media works.
Reuters/Shannon Stapleton
There are four key things Donald Trump’s election tells us about the state of journalism today.
Public interest reporting is often equated with watchdog or investigative reporting. But it can include other factual stories that serve the public interest.
Shutterstock
Public interest journalism exposes corruption and wrongdoers, and holds the powerful to account. But it is increasingly under threat, and we need to find ways to protect it.
Pundits have been keen to link post-truth to post-modernists, post-positivists or any other ‘postie’. They should turn their energy to forming a real popular front against Trump’s faux populism.
In ‘Big Huggin,’ players control the action by giving affection to a teddy bear controller.
Game by Lindsay Grace; Photo by Stacey Stormes
Lindsay Grace, American University School of Communication
Readers read, viewers watch and players do. That level of engagement gives games real power to influence people both within and outside the play itself.
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?