[Commlist] New book: Fake News in an Era of Social Media; Tracking Viral Contagion

Fake News in an Era of Social Media: Tracking Viral Contagion,

https://rowman.com/ISBN/9781786614216/Fake-News-in-an-Era-of-Social-Media-Tracking-Viral-Contagion

Over the last few years, social media has expanded to become a key 
platform for news dissemination and circulation, and a key instigator 
and propagator of 'fake news'. Nations, governments, organisations and 
societies are now coming to terms with the unpredictable and 
debilitating consequences of fake news. The propagation of news 
containing falsehoods has been linked to an increase in measles cases, 
surges in youth crimes, the spread of pseudo-science, compromised 
national security, and a global threat to democratic systems around the 
world. In this book, the authors examine factors influencing the spread 
of fake news, suggesting ways to combat it by exploring the key elements 
which enable and facilitate this phenomenon.

The scourge of ‘fake news’ represents pollution in our media ecology, 
its contamination of journalism threatening the health of democratic 
deliberation and debate in public life. Investigating its impact is 
vital, necessarily compelling us to rethink familiar tensions around the 
presumed ‘objectivity,’ ‘balance’ and ‘fairness’ of ‘real news’ as a 
matter of urgency. Yasmin Ibrahim and Fadi Safieddine’s edited 
collection Fake News in an Era of Social Media: Tracking Viral Contagion 
is a significant intervention, its contributors inspiring us to envisage 
positive, strategic approaches to challenging ‘post-truth’ disinformation.

— Stuart Allan, Professor and Head of the School of Journalism, Media 
and Cultural Studies, Cardiff University

It’s impossible to think of a more pressing topic in politics at present 
than ‘fake news’ and its impact on citizens around the globe as they 
seek to make sense of democracy in a digital age. This is a bold, 
unprecedentedly interdisciplinary and international initiative. Bringing 
together voices that are rarely heard for an exciting dialog, the 
editors have produced a text for the ages as well as today. Required 
reading!

— Toby Miller, New York University

Fake news and disinformation have emerged as THE phenomenon of our era, 
one which is perceived by many to be a subversive threat to democracy 
itself. This comprehensive and rigorous analysis captures the essence of 
a phenomenon at once ancient and modern and explains a world where 
everything and nothing is believed, a parallel reality where lies are 
merely alternative truths. These essays of course elucidate the 
fundamentals- how did we get here, and how can we combat it. But they 
also unravel the technological mysteries enabling Disinformation and 
investigate the psychology behind it. This lucid and insightful volume 
is necessary for anyone, citizen or scholar, who seeks an intelligent 
exposition of this troubling subject.

— Nicholas O'Shaughnessy, Professor of Communication, Queen Mary 
University of London School of Business and Management

The editors make a welcome contribution to existing knowledge on fake 
news, a phenomenon that is simultaneously old yet morphing rapidly into 
different manifestations in the social media era. Unusually, the 
collection is genuinely inter-disciplinary bringing together knowledge 
and approaches from the social sciences with that of computing. The 
result is an interesting exploration of the theoretical, technical and 
practical.

— Anita Howarth, Senior Lecturer, Department of Social Sciences, Media 
and Communication at Brunel University London

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