Since humans have been able to talk and influence each other through communication, there have been incentives to deceive as well as to avoid being deceived. This course looks at deception from a multi-disciplinary perspective, with a special focus on modern post-truth phenomena like fake news, conspiracy theories and the like.
We will consider the following domains:
Linguistic domain: What does it mean to lie or deceive? How many strategies are there? How is misinformation different from lying, fake news, factoids, or disinformation? How can other modalities of communication – pictures, data visualizations – be used to deceive?
Psychological/cognitive domain: How gullible are humans? How good are people in spotting lies? What are the circumstances under which one might be inclined to believe fake news? Is it possible/necessary to protect the human mind from false information?
Historical/evolutionary domain: How did lying evolve? Is it present in other species too? What are the historical antecedents of fake news? How did media develop a journalism ethics? How do traditional media institutions handle the Digital Age?
Political domain: What is the difference between political propaganda, disinformation, active measures, and influence operations? What effect do disinformation campaigns have on our democratic processes? How effective is microtargeting? How effective is propaganda? Is social media responsible for political polarization? What political/legal/practical solutions have been proposed to combat the spread of false information?
Methodological domain: What are the main methods of studying fake news and social media?
It is also important to define what the course is not about. We will not consider philosophical approaches to truth, knowledge, or belief. Instead, we will focus on basic concepts, mainly from social epistemology, specifically journalism: how do legitimate journalists curate information and gather evidence?
- Instructor: Akos Szegofi