Baume, S., Boilet, V. & Martenet, V. (2020). Misinformation in Referenda.Routledge.
The book identifies the impact of misinformation in the context of referenda. While the notion of misinformation is at the centre of current events and is the subject of several studies, it has rarely been addressed in the context of referenda or from a multidisciplinary and comparative perspective. This book fills this gap. Different legal orders have been chosen because of their extensive referendum practices (California and Switzerland); a recent legislative process on the issue of misinformation (Germany, France, and Canada); or recent experience with a vote during which it was considered that false information had been disseminated (Brexit, Catalan independence, and Italian constitutional referendum of 2016). By bringing together authors from the political and legal sciences, the book focuses on combining the expertise of researchers from different backgrounds and origins in order to propose innovative solutions. In this regard, the book is characterized by the fact that it does not aim to combat misinformation per se, but develops suggestions meant to guarantee the conditions of formation of the political will during referenda. The book will be an invaluable resource for legal scholars, political scientists, and specialists of political communication. Outside the world of academia, the book may draw the attention of policy-makers, practitioners, and journalists confronted with the challenges of misinformation or disinformation.Chiluwa, I.E. & Samoilenko, S.A. (2019). Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online.IGI Global.
The growing amount of false and misleading information on the internet has generated new concerns and quests for research regarding the study of deception and deception detection. Innovative methods that involve catching these fraudulent scams are constantly being perfected, but more material addressing these concerns is needed. The Handbook of Research on Deception, Fake News, and Misinformation Online provides broad perspectives, practices, and case studies on online deception. It also offers deception-detection methods on how to address the challenges of the various aspects of deceptive online communication and cyber fraud. While highlighting topics such as behavior analysis, cyber terrorism, and network security, this publication explores various aspects of deceptive behavior and deceptive communication on social media, as well as new methods examining the concepts of fake news and misinformation, character assassination, and political deception. This book is ideally designed for academicians, students, researchers, media specialists, and professionals involved in media and communications, cyber security, psychology, forensic linguistics, and information technology.Fowler-Watt, K. & McDougall, J. (Eds.) (2022). The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation.Palgrave McMillan.
The Palgrave Handbook of Media Misinformation provides a comprehensive and cutting-edge resource on the critical debates surrounding fake news and misinformation online. Spanning all continents and linking academic, journalistic, and educational communities, this collection offers authoritative coverage of conspiracy theories, the post-Trump and Brexit landscape, and the role of big tech in threats to democracy and free speech. The collection moves through a diagnosis of misinformation and its impacts on democracy and civic societies, the 'mainstreaming' of conspiracy theory, the impacts of misinformation on health and science, and the increasing significance of data visualization. Following these diagnoses, the handbook moves to responses from two communities of practice – the world of journalism and the field of media literacy.van der Linden, S. (2023). Foolproof: Why we Fall for Misinformation and How to Build Immunity.W.W. Norton & Company.
Informed by decades of research and on-the-ground experience advising governments and tech companies, Foolproof is the definitive guide to navigating the misinformation age. From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being―yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof, one of the world’s leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it’s very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold.Borel, B. (2023). The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking. University of Chicago Press.
Over the past few years, fact-checking has been widely touted as a corrective to the spread of misinformation, disinformation, conspiracy theories, and propaganda through the media. “If journalism is a cornerstone of democracy,” says author Brooke Borel, “then fact-checking is its building inspector.” In The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking, Borel, an experienced fact-checker, draws on the expertise of more than 200 writers, editors, and fellow checkers representing the New Yorker, Popular Science, This American Life, Vogue, and many other outlets. She covers best practices for editorial fact-checking in a variety of media—from magazine and news articles, both print and online, to books and podcasts—and the perspectives of both in-house and freelance checkers. In this second edition, Borel covers the evolving media landscape, with new guidance on checking audio and video sources, polling data, and sensitive subjects such as trauma and abuse. The sections on working with writers, editors, and producers have been expanded, and new material includes fresh exercises and advice on getting fact-checking gigs. Borel also addresses the challenges of fact-checking in a world where social media, artificial intelligence, and the metaverse may make it increasingly difficult for everyone—including fact-checkers—to identify false information. The answer, she says, is for everyone to approach information with skepticism—to learn to think like a fact-checker. The Chicago Guide to Fact-Checking is the practical—and thoroughly vetted—guide that writers, editors, and publishers continue to consult to maintain their credibility and solidify their readers’ trust.Caulifield, M. & Wineburg, S. (2023). Verified: How to Think Straight, Get Duped Less, and Make Better Decisions about What to Believe Online. University of Chicago Press.
The internet brings information to our fingertips almost instantly. The result is that we often jump to thinking too fast, without taking a few moments to verify the source before engaging with a claim or viral piece of media. Information literacy expert Mike Caulfield and educational researcher Sam Wineburg are here to enable us to take a moment for due diligence with this informative, approachable guide to the internet. With this illustrated tool kit, you will learn to identify red flags, get quick context, and make better use of common websites like Google and Wikipedia that can help and hinder in equal measure. This how-to guide will teach you how to use the web to verify the web, quickly and efficiently. Building on techniques like SIFT and lateral reading, Verified will help students and anyone else looking to get a handle on the internet’s endless flood of information through quick, practical, and accessible steps.Phillips, W. & Milner, R.M. (2021). You are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape. MIT Press.
How to understand a media environment in crisis, and how to make things better by approaching information ecologically. Our media environment is in crisis. Polarization is rampant. Polluted information floods social media. Even our best efforts to help clean up can backfire, sending toxins roaring across the landscape. In You Are Here, Whitney Phillips and Ryan Milner offer strategies for navigating increasingly treacherous information flows. Using ecological metaphors, they emphasize how our individual me is entwined within a much larger we, and how everyone fits within an ever-shifting network map. Phillips and Milner describe how our poisoned media landscape came into being, beginning with the Satanic Panics of the 1980s and 1990s—which, they say, exemplify “network climate change”—and proceeding through the emergence of trolling culture and the rise of the reactionary far right (as well as its amplification by journalists) during and after the 2016 election. They explore the history of conspiracy theories in the United States, focusing on those concerning the Deep State; explain why old media literacy solutions fail to solve new media literacy problems; and suggest how we can navigate the network crisis more thoughtfully, effectively, and ethically. We need a network ethics that looks beyond the messages and the messengers to investigate toxic information's downstream effects.Helfand, D. (2017). A Survival Guide to the Misinformation Age: Scientific Habits of Mind. Columbia University Press.
We have billions of bytes of data at our fingertips. But how much of it is misinformation—or even disinformation? A lot of it is, and your search engine can’t tell the difference. As a result, an avalanche of misinformation threatens to overwhelm the discourse we so desperately need to address complex social problems such as climate change, the food and water crises, biodiversity collapse, and emerging threats to public health. This book provides an inoculation against the misinformation epidemic by cultivating scientific habits of mind. Anyone can do it—indeed, everyone must do it if our species is to survive on this crowded and finite planet. This survival guide supplies an essential set of apps for the prefrontal cortex while making science both accessible and entertaining. It will dissolve your fear of numbers, demystify graphs, and elucidate the key concepts of probability, all while celebrating the precise use of language and logic. David Helfand, one of our nation’s leading astronomers and science educators, has taught scientific habits of mind to generations in the classroom, where he continues to wage a provocative battle against sloppy thinking and the encroachment of misinformation.Howard, P.N. (2020). Lie Machines: How to Save Democracy from Troll Armies, Deceitful Robots, Junk News Operations, and Politcal Operatives. Yale University Press.
Technology is breaking politics – what can be done about it?Artificially intelligent “bot” accounts attack politicians and public figures on social media. Conspiracy theorists publish junk news sites to promote their outlandish beliefs. Campaigners create fake dating profiles to attract young voters. We live in a world of technologies that misdirect our attention, poison our political conversations, and jeopardize our democracies. With massive amounts of social media and public polling data, and in depth interviews with political consultants, bot writers, and journalists, Philip N. Howard offers ways to take these “lie machines” apart. Lie Machines is full of riveting behind the scenes stories from the world’s biggest and most damagingly successful misinformation initiatives—including those used in Brexit and U.S. elections. Howard not only shows how these campaigns evolved from older propaganda operations but also exposes their new powers, gives us insight into their effectiveness, and shows us how to shut them down.
Gibson, D.W. & Camm, J.D. (2023). Data Duped: How to Avoid Being Hoodwinked by Misinformation. Rowman & Littlefield.
Gives you the superpower to be a healthy skeptic when consuming data and information. Data Duped is a book about how we are commonly deceived by numbers in our everyday lives. From lotteries, product warranties, and weight loss fads to misleading headlines and social media posts, there is no shortage of confusing or misleading information. Numbers are used to manipulate our decisions and impact our lives in ways that may not be immediately apparent. Data Duped will help you avoid being fooled by these messages and to develop a sense of ‘data defense’ by learning what types of questions to ask and how to maintain a healthy level of curiosity and data skepticism. Data Duped guides readers to discern the differences between the plausible and the ridiculous along a journey of informed critical thinking and data literacy. With historical parallels alongside practical and relatable examples, readers will learn how to spot the ‘malarkey’ from the truth and how to avoid being hoodwinked by misinformation.