The Anatomy of Fake News
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The Anatomy of Fake News

A Critical News Literacy Education

Nolan Higdon
UC Press, 2020
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America’s founders believed a functioning democracy must have a free press, but the mission of informing the public has always faced threats from false or misleading information. Since colonial times, false stories have driven ignominious events – for example, the Salem witch trials and McCarthyism’s red scare. The internet exacerbates this problem by empowering almost anyone to produce and distribute fake news. Media scholar Nolan Higdon recounts the history of fake news and describes the best ways to counter it. To start, he advises, help people build a skill many lack: the ability to distinguish between real and fake reports.

Summary

Fake news threatens public safety and democracy.

Fake news has always been a factor in American life, at least since it spurred the “moral panic” that led to the Salem witch trials. Puritan minister Cotton Mather’s 1688 fake news diatribe about witches, Memorable Providences, was only part of an onslaught of false accusations leading to public hysteria – a sad demonstration that people are prone to assume a message is true because it’s been repeated many times.

The influence of fake news grew with each communication innovation, including newspapers, radio, and television. The internet has brought fake news to new power because it allows anyone with a web connection to spread false or misleading information. On social media, “fake news is 70% more likely to spread than truth.”

Fake news threatens democracy because voters must have accurate information to make meaningful decisions. Unfortunately, today many Americans cannot tell the difference between fake news and real journalism.

The COVID-19 pandemic illustrated how fake news causes confusion. Some stories denied the disease existed, while...

About the Author

Along the Line podcast co-host Nolan Higdon lectures on media studies and history at California State University at East Bay. He and Mickey Huff co-wrote Let’s Agree to Disagree and United States of Distraction.

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