Infowars are so powerful, and we're so ill-prepared to meet them.
Yesterday, I was struck by how much media illiteracy reigns. How gullible we still are in every news cycle.
Is it genuine?
Or do people know full well what they're weaponizing?
That's the kind of despair infowars breed.
One no longer knows if one's neighbours are being honestly manipulated or eager participants in their own manipulation.
All one knows is that propaganda reigns, and has made the world unsafer yet again.
@MLClark I watched over the weekend a documentary about William Randolph Hearst. I don't think most people realize that the "fake news" from Fox and similar ilk are nothing new. Hearst was doing it 125 years ago.
As does Rupert Murdoch, Hearst didn't care who he hurt or what war he started, so long as he made money from it. Like #Trump, he was a sociopathic narcissist.
For those with an interest:
As of late, there's been pushback on a myth around Hearst that also reflects the problem today. In modern histories, Hearst is set up as a singular purveyor of misinfo, because having one big puppet master absolves us of personal responsibility.
Unfortunately, the truth is that many journalists of the era were *very eager* to embellish to further their careers.
That there was ever an era of "good" journalism is a bit of a myth. Most of the time, we've been sifting through lies.
@MLClark @WordsmithFL oh yeah. People forget that newspapers used to explicitly identify themselves as "Republican" or "Democratic" in orientation. And then there's the histories of the American West, where dueling newspapers were very common even in the smallest towns.
For all the complaints about social media, we forget that newspapers and tabloids and broadsheets spreading scurrilous and sensationalist information were common. Newspaper wars existed.
@joycereynoldsward I gladly shell out $72 every six months for Newspapers.com, an archive for thousands of newspapers around the world. Not only is it an excellent research resource, but it's also fun to go back in time and read how the news was reported. I couldn't have written my current history book project without it.