Below is some suggested reading related to the course syllabus. Use the MU library catalog to locate additional titles. Books not available from MU can be requested via Interlibrary Loan.
Once you find a book on your topic, be sure to look at the book's subject heading. Following the link to this heading will take you to other books on your topic.
Attack from Within by
Legal expert breaks down the ways disinformation has become a tool to drive voters to extremes, disempower our legal structures, and consolidate power in the hands of the few. In Attack from Within, legal scholar and analyst Barbara McQuade, shows us how to identify the ways disinformation is seeping into all facets of our society and how we can fight against it. Disinformation is designed to evoke a strong emotional response to push us toward more extreme views, unable to find common ground with others. The false claims that led to the breathtaking attack on the Capitol in 2020 may have been only a dress rehearsal. Attack from Within shows how to prevent it from happening again, thus preserving democracy.
Foolproof by
From fake news to conspiracy theories, from inflammatory memes to misleading headlines, misinformation has swiftly become the defining problem of our era. The crisis threatens the integrity of our democracies, our ability to cultivate trusting relationships, even our physical and psychological well-being--yet most attempts to combat it have proven insufficient. In Foolproof, one of the world's leading experts on misinformation lays out a crucial new paradigm for understanding and defending ourselves against the worldwide infodemic. With remarkable clarity, Sander van der Linden explains why our brains are so vulnerable to misinformation, how it spreads across social networks, and what we can do to protect ourselves and others. Like a virus, misinformation infects our minds, exploiting shortcuts in how we see and process information to alter our beliefs, modify our memories, and replicate at astonishing rates. Once the virus takes hold, it's very hard to cure. Strategies like fact-checking and debunking can leave a falsehood still festering or, at worst, even strengthen its hold. But we aren't helpless. As van der Linden shows based on award-winning original research, we can cultivate immunity through the innovative science of "prebunking": inoculating people against false information by preemptively exposing them to a weakened dose, thus empowering them to identify and fend off its manipulative tactics. Deconstructing the characteristic techniques of conspiracies and misinformation, van der Linden gives readers practical tools to defend themselves and others against nefarious persuasion--whether at scale or around their own dinner table.
Reference Shelf: Propaganda and Misinformation by
This edition of Reference Shelf looks at propaganda and misinformation. Social media posts inciting sectarian violence, government-manipulated misinformation campaigns, for-profit fake news headlines, and well-meaning but gullible individuals promoting conspiracies point up the problems with our current media environment. Looking at such issues as Russian election interference, the increasing polarization of media consumption, hacktivism, and the future role AI could play in making fake news more difficult to detect, this volume explores the pollution of our information environment and what we can do about it.