media theory

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Kellyanne Conway: lies are “alternative facts” and if the press says otherwise, there's gonna be trouble

Tim Dempsey

Donald Trump’s press secretary Sean Spicer inaugurated his first day on the job by telling easily falsifiable lies about the relative sizes of the Trump inauguration crowds and those of the Obama administration.
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Six essays on media, technology and politics from Data & Society

Tim Dempsey

danah boyd writes, “Yesterday, a group of us at Data & Society put out six essays on ‘media, technology, politics.’ Taken
together, these pieces address different facets of the current public
conversation surrounding propaganda, hate speech, and the US election.
Although we only allude to specifics, we have been witnessing
mis/disinformation campaigns for quite some time as different networks
seek to manipulate both old and new media, shape political discourse,
and undermine trust in institutions and information intermediaries. In
short, we are concerned about the rise of a new form of propaganda that
is networked, decentralized, and internet-savvy. We are also concerned
about the ongoing development of harassment techniques and gaslighting,
the vulnerability of old and new media to propagate fear and
disinformation, and the various ways in which well-intended
interventions get misappropriated. We believe that we’re
watching a systematic attack on democracy, equality, and freedom. There
is no silver bullet to address the issues we’re seeing. Instead,
a healthy response is going to require engagement by many different
constituencies. We see our role in this as to help inform and ground the
conversation. These essays are our first attempt to address the
interwoven issues we’re seeing.
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