"Fake News," Lies and Propaganda: How to Sort Fact from Fiction

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

The Bill of Rights, Amendment I of the U.S. Constitution
 

Trust in a shared objective reality is important to create a society with common ground.

University learning and research promote the value of empirical knowledge and the scientific method for understanding the world around us.

Keywords describing lack of trust in objective facts

• Post-Truth
• Truthiness
• "Alternative Facts"

Trends and phenomena related to the impact of "fake news"

Some introductory sources are provided. The interested researcher is advised to conduct additional searches on these keywords and topics.

• Anti-intellectualism
  • Grier, P. (2016, September 27). The roots of Donald Trump’s anti-intellectualism. Christian Science Monitor.
  • Merritt, K. L. (2014). Anti-Intellectualism. In R. Chapman & J. Ciment (Eds.), Culture Wars in America: An Encyclopedia of Issues, Viewpoints, and Voices (2nd ed., pp. 44-45). Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. (Library access)
• Antiscience
  • Otto, S. L. (2012, November 1). Antiscience beliefs jeopardize U.S. democracy. Scientific American.

  • Brulle, R. J., & Roberts, J. T. (2017). Climate misinformation campaigns and public sociology. Contexts, 16(1), 78–79. (Library access)

• Agnotology - the "deliberate propagation of ignorance"
  • Kenyon, G. (2016, January 6). The man who studies the spread of ignorance. BBC Future.
• Power elites create reality; political derision for the "reality-based community" 
  • Suskind, R. (2004, October 17). Without a Doubt. The New York Times. 

Propaganda hinders effective democratic functioning and “results in the manipulation of the mob by the elite.”

Pratkanis, A. R., & Turner, M. E. (1996). Persuasion and democracy: Strategies for increasing deliberative participation and enacting social change. Journal of Social Issues, 52(1), 187–205. (MLibrary Access) 

As cited in DiFonzo, N. (2010). Propaganda. In The Corsini Encyclopedia of Psychology. John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (MLibrary Access)