Despite an ongoing controversy over “fake news,” more Americans this year (27%) say they have a “great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in newspapers than did so last year (20%). Although confidence in newspapers is up from last year’s record low, it remains lower than it typically was […] Read more »
21st-century propaganda: A guide to interpreting and confronting the dark arts of persuasion
… The belief, or rather hope, that humankind is ultimately rational has gripped Western politics at least since Descartes, and inspired such 19th-century optimists as Thomas Jefferson and John Stuart Mill. “Where the press is free, and every man able to read, all is safe,” Jefferson famously wrote. But in […] Read more »
A scholar asks, ‘Can democracy survive the Internet?’
… Nathaniel Persily, a law professor at Stanford University, is among the many — academics, political practitioners, journalists, law enforcement officials and others — who are attempting to understand better the consequences of conducting campaigns and governance here and around the world in the Internet age. He has written about […] Read more »
Americans have mixed views on policies encouraging broadband adoption
As the Federal Communications Commission continues to address broadband infrastructure and access, Americans have mixed views on two policies designed to encourage broadband adoption, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. CONT. Pew Read more »
How the Internet Threatens Democracy
As the forces of reaction outpace movements predicated on the ideal of progress, and as traditional norms of political competition are tossed aside, it’s clear that the internet and social media have succeeded in doing what many feared and some hoped they would. They have disrupted and destroyed institutional constraints […] Read more »
How YouTube Serves As The Content Engine Of The Internet’s Dark Side
… In the aftermath of the 2016 presidential election, the major social platforms, most notably Twitter, Facebook, and Reddit, have been forced to undergo painful, often public reckonings with the role they play in spreading bad information. … And yet there is a mammoth social platform, a cornerstone of the […] Read more »