On this episode of The Open Mind, we’re delighted to welcome back the foremost expert on American political communication, Kathleen Hall Jamieson. Oxford University Press has published her newest work, “Cyberwar: How Russian Hackers and Trolls Helped Elect a President – What We Don’t, Can’t and Do Know.” … The […] Read more »
Why Fears of Fake News Are Overhyped
After the shock of the 2016 presidential election, many Americans found psychological refuge in a simple explanation for why Donald Trump won: “fake news.” False or misleading information published by dubious for-profit websites had spread widely on Facebook, reaching millions of people in the final months of the campaign. This […] Read more »
10 facts about Americans and Facebook
It’s been 15 years since the creation of Facebook, a platform that revolutionized social media in the United States and around the world. While Facebook remains immensely popular – and highly profitable – it has attracted scrutiny in the U.S. in recent years because of concerns over its ability to […] Read more »
Troll Watch: Study Shows Older Americans Share The Most Fake News
NPR’s Sarah McCammon speaks with Andy Guess of Princeton University about a new study that finds that older Americans are more likely to share fake news than their younger counterparts. NPR News Read more »
Who was most likely to share fake news in 2016? Seniors.
This week, the New York Times broke the news that Democratic activists posted misleading Facebook pages and Twitter feeds during the 2017 U.S. Senate race in Alabama. That’s just the latest iteration in the ongoing saga of online disinformation and “fake news” since the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Researchers have […] Read more »
Secret campaign to use Russian-inspired tactics in 2017 Alabama election stirs anxiety for Democrats
A secret effort to influence the 2017 Senate election in Alabama used tactics inspired by Russian disinformation teams, including the creation of fake accounts to deliver misleading messages on Facebook to hundreds of thousands of voters to help elect Democrat Doug Jones in the deeply red state, according to a […] Read more »