Reading assignments and resources for further exploration provided by Teresa Schmidt, course instructor and director of the Mercer Public Library
Week 1: Misinformation, Disinformation, and Fake News
- Week 1 presentation slides: PDF, 3.4MB
- Resources for further study
- Optional: “The Social Dilemma,” a Netflix original documentary/dramatization.
- Optional: The Wired Guide to Online Conspiracy Theories
Week 2: But why do they do it?
- Reading assignments to prepare for week 2
- “The Backfire Effect” – a cartoon by The Oatmeal
- “People Drawn to Conspiracy Theories Share a Cluster of Psychological Features” by Moyer, published in Scientific American
- “A Psychological Approach to Promoting Truth in Politics: The Pro-Truth Pledge” by Gleb Tsipursky, et. al., published in the Journal of Social and Political Psychology. Read the first 5 pages, or more if you are into it!
- Optional: “Beware online ‘filter bubbles” – a TED talk with Eli Pariser (video, 2011, 8 min 49 sec)
- Optional: “The Psychology of Conspiracy Theories” by Douglas, et. al. A literature review published in APS: The Association for Psychological Science.
- Week 2 Presentation slides
- Resources for further study
- From The Atlantic, “The Supply of Disinformation Will Soon Be Infinite”: www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/09/future-propaganda-will-be-computer-generated/616400/
- “Mainstream media as a spreader of fake news”: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/23808985.2020.1759443
- From The New York Times Magazine, “The Agency”: www.nytimes.com/2015/06/07/magazine/the-agency.html
Week 3: Identifying bad information
- Reading assignments to prepare for week 3
- “Psychological inoculation against fake news” by Sander van der Linden and Jon Roozenbeek, Psychology of Fake News, Chapter 9. Optional: play the game at getbadnews.com
- Combating Fake News, a conference paper from Harvard University, Matthew Baum, et. al.
- “How to combat fake news and disinformation” by Darrell West, Brookings Institution
- “10 ways to have a better conversation” – www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1vskiVDwl4&ab_channel=TED
- Optional: “Your Fake News, Our Facts” by Daphna Oyserman and Andrew Dawson, Psychology of Fake News, Chapter 10. A look at the use of identity politics in the Brexit campaign.
- Optional: Knight Foundation report, Disinformation, ‘Fake News’ and Influence Campaigns on Twitter – executive summary, visualization, full report.
- Resources for further study
- Invisible Men: how objectivity in journalism became a matter of opinion – The Economist, July 16, 2020.
- “What to Expect When You’re Electing” – PEN America
Week 4: Do your research!
Week 4: Do your research!
Resources for further study
- Mann, Thomas. The Oxford Guide to Library Research, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, 2005. Chapter 8: Higher-Level Overviews: Review Articles.
- Feilden, Tom. “Most scientists ‘can’t replicate studies by their peers.'” BBC News, 22 February 2017.
- Beall, Jeffrey. “What I learned from predatory publishers.” Croatian Society of Medical Biochemistry, 2017.
- For general information on scholarly publishing, see The Scholarly Kitchen.