Media and Misinformation

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, concerns about fake news have fostered calls for government regulation and industry intervention to mitigate the influence of false content. These proposals are hindered by a lack of consensus concerning the definition of fake news or its origins.

New perspectives on the misinformation ecosystem that is the production and circulation of fake news.

Fake News in Context defines fake news and sets it within a historical and international context. Helping readers to become more skilled at detecting misinformation, the book also demonstrates how such knowledge can be leveraged to facilitate more effective engagement in civic education.

Deepfakes is a synthetic media that leverage powerful Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) techniques to generate fake visual and audio content that are extremely realistic, thus making it very hard for a human to distinguish from the original ones. Apart from technological introduction to the Deepfakes concept, the book details algorithms to detect Deepfakes, techniques for identifying manipulated content.

A powerful analysis of why lies and falsehoods spread so rapidly now, and how we can amend our laws and policies regarding speech to alleviate the problem.

What happens when we can no longer believe what we see? Show the AI technologies that create deepfakes enough images of a celebrity or a politician and they will generate a convincing video in which that person appears to say and do things they have never actually said or done. The result is a media environment in which anyone's face and image can be remixed and manipulated.

Is social media destroying democracy? Are Russian propaganda or "Fake news" entrepreneurs on Facebook undermining our sense of a shared reality? Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency.

An examination of what algorithmic polarization means for society and how conservative elites use media literacy tactics to spread propaganda