Alternative facts, misdirection, and outright propaganda seem to dominate the news media landscape today in a way that is quite different from the past.  How can viewers and listeners navigate the flood of untruths? Can democracy survive the viral uptake of social media memes and myths?

1. THE NEW WORLD OF UNTRUTH
Alternative facts,
misdirection, and outright
propaganda seem to
dominate the news media
landscape today in a way
that is quite different from
the past. How can viewers
and listeners navigate the
flood of untruths? Can
democracy survive the viral
uptake of social media
memes and myths?
In this session, participants
will journey through the
history of political news, the
origins of the current trends,
and the outcomes of these
trends on polling, policy, and
elections. Participants will
leave with some tools for
navigating the current news
media landscape and will
gain awareness of the
potential dangers and
surprising promise of the
new trends in political news.
THE DAILY NEWS
www.dailynews.com THE WORLD’S FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER - Since 1879

2. Who Am I?
Dr. Rosalind Warner
Email: rowarner@Okanagan.bc.ca
Blog: rozwarner.com
Twitter: @rwarner23

3. NEW WORLD OF UNTRUTH
• What has changed?
–Media, Tech and the Political
Universe
• Top 6 Reasons Untruth Works
• What is to be done?

5. What Has Changed?

6. Money Media
2016
Election Ad
Spending
Total:
$9.8bn
2016 Ads
Produced by
Russian Trolls:
$100,000

7. Cameron
Harris
invents a
story and
makes $5000

8. Breitbart media ecosystem
…influenced mainstream coverage

9. What Has Changed?
Technology
One out of five twitter accounts
tweeting about the election in
2016 were bots.
~Coles
Trump has 30
million Twitter
“followers,” only
half of whom are
real; the other 50%
are bots.

10. Technology + Human =
A Twitter persona account
can be purchased for less
than $1 in bitcoin
‘Sock puppets’
more
enthusiastic!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
!!!!!!!!!

11. Deep Fakes
Video game
image ‘startling
visual proof’ of
US military
assisting the
Islamic State
……& news agencies are now using bots
to publish stories
…hackers are now including misinformation,
including digitally manipulated data, in legitimately
leaked dumps…

12. Politics
Literal denial vs. interpretive denial

13. Foreign Intervention
30,000 bots
discovered
posting duplicate
content
throughout the
comments on
Trump’s Facebook
page

14. Foreign Intervention

15. Hacking & Trolling
• Undermine citizen confidence in democratic
governance;
• Foment and exacerbate divisive political fractures;
• Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and
democratic institutions;
• Popularize Russian policy agendas within foreign
populations;
• Create general distrust or confusion over information
sources by blurring the lines between fact and fiction

16. Polarization of Ideologies

17. Polarization & Populism
Populism: increasing appeals to anti-
government agenda, focused on ‘ordinary’
people (Tim Hortons vs. Starbucks)

18. None of this would (or
perhaps should) really
matter…

19. Top 6 Reasons Untruth Works

20. Why Does it Work?
1. Confirmation
Bias

21. 2. Big Lies
"If you do things a
little differently,"
[Trump] writes of the
media, "if you say
outrageous things
and fight back, they
love you."

22. 3. Conspiracies

23. Pizzagate

25. Cambridge Analytica ‘psychographic’
techniques used 5 Personality Traits
4. Big Data
openness
extroversion
conscientiousness
agreeablenessneuroticism

26. Consequences
of the ‘Trust Crash’
63 percent of the U.S.
general population finds it
difficult to distinguish between
what is real news and what is
fake.
~Edelman Trust Barometer
5. Doubt

27. Sewing Doubt
Nearly two-thirds agree that the average
person cannot distinguish good journalism
from falsehoods.
~ Edelman, Richard Edelman Trust Barometer, page 3

28. Gary Lachman: "Dark Star Rising: Magick and Power
in the Age of Trump."
‘What feels true’
“A meme is some symbol,
image, phrase or little
cultural unit or concept
that spreads.”
6. Emotion

29. What is to be Done?
Tell compelling stories…

30. What is to be
Done?
-Gary Gutting

31. News Literacy Project

32. Can technology make governments more
democratic?

33. Collective Debate
http://collectivedebate.mit.edu/

35. ‘Fake news’?
There is growing
evidence that such
deception is more
sophisticated but may
be becoming less
effectiveffective

36. Fact-Checking

37. TIME FOR QUESTIONS….
Alternative facts,
misdirection, and outright
propaganda seem to
dominate the news media
landscape today in a way
that is quite different from
the past. How can viewers
and listeners navigate the
flood of untruths? Can
democracy survive the viral
uptake of social media
memes and myths?
In this session, participants
will journey through the
history of political news, the
origins of the current trends,
and the outcomes of these
trends on polling, policy, and
elections. Participants will
leave with some tools for
navigating the current news
media landscape and will
gain awareness of the
potential dangers and
surprising promise of the
new trends in political news.
THANK YOU!
www.dailynews.com THE WORLD’S FAVOURITE NEWSPAPER - Since 1879