Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age, Melissa Zimdars and Kembrew McLeod (eds) (2020)

2021 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 158-160
Author(s):  
Nico Hylkema
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Fake News

Review of: Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinformation in the Digital Age, Melissa Zimdars and Kembrew McLeod (eds) (2020) New York: PublicAffairs, 416 pp., ISBN 978-0-26253-836-7, p/bk, $38

Garden-Variety Formalist

2018 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 55-60
Author(s):  
Colin Lang
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Social Constructivism ◽  
Cultural Context ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Bret Easton Ellis ◽  
Literary Achievement ◽  
Alternative Facts ◽  
Media Spectacle ◽  
New Perspective ◽  
Complex Relationships

Recently, the effort to counter Fake News faced a counter attack: academic »postmodernism « and »social constructivism« it was said—because they say that facts are soaked in prior interpretations—are either purveyors of Fake News or set the cultural context in which it flourishes. They do so by undermining confidence in inquiry governed by simple facts. That is erroneous, argues William E. Connolly, because postmodernism never said that facts or objectivity are ghostly, subjective or »fake«. However, that what was objective at one time may become less so at a later date through the combination of a paradigm shift in theory, new powers of perception, new tests with refined instruments, and changes in natural processes such as species evolution. But the emergence of new theories and tests does not reduce objectivity to subjective opinion. Facts are real. Objectivity is important. But as you move up the scale of complexity with respect to facts and objectivity, it becomes clear that what was objective at one time may become subjective at another. Not because of Fake News or postmodernism. But because the complex relationships between theory, evidence and conduct periodically open up new thresholds. Colin Lang in turn rhetorically asks if »fake news« or »alternative facts« are a new carnival and Trump its dog and pony show? The idea of »fake news« and »alternative facts« as a carnival could not only help to see the constructedness of the media spectacle, but also provides a new perspective on Trump as an actor who is playing a particular role in this carnival, and that role is not one that any of us would describe as presidential. Many in the popular press have assumed it is just what it looks like, an infantilized narcissist, a parody of some Regan-era New York real estate tycoon straight out of a Bret Easton Ellis novel. The problem is that this description is all too obvious, and misses something fundamental about alternative facts, and the part that Trump is playing. A central assumption is, then, that the creation of alternative facts is one symptom of a more structural, paradigmatic shift in the persona of a president, one which has few correlates in the annals of political history. The closest analogy for his kind of performance is actually hinted at in the title of Trump’s greatest literary achievement: The Art of the Deal. Trump is playing the part of an artist, pilfering from the tactics of the avant-garde and putting them to very different ends.

New York Right of Publicity: Reimagining Privacy and the First Amendment in the Digital Age - AELJ Spring Symposium 2

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Goering ◽  
Justin Hughes ◽  
Mary LaFrance ◽  
Jennifer E. Rothman ◽  
Nathan Siegel ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
First Amendment ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Right Of Publicity

scholarly journals Simulacra in the Age of Social Media: Baudrillard as the Prophet of Fake News

2020 ◽  
pp. 019685992097715
Author(s):  
James Morris
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Online Technology ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Mass Reproduction

“Fake News” has been a frequent topic in the last couple of years. The phenomenon has particularly been cited with regards to the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. The creation of “post truth” reports that are disseminated via the Web and social media has been treated as something new, a product of the digital age, and a reason to be concerned about the effects of online technology. However, this paper argues that fake news should be considered as part of a continuum with forms of media that went before in the 20th Century, and the general trend of postmodernity detailed by Baudrillard. The simulation of communications media and mass reproduction was already evident and has merely progressed in the digital age rather than the latter providing a wholly new context. The paper concludes by asking whether the political havoc caused by fake news has an antidote, when it appears to be a by-product of media simulacra’s inherent lack of connection to the real. In a communications landscape where the misrepresentations of the so-called “Mainstream Media” are decried using even more questionable “memes” on social media, is there any possibility for truth?

Humans of New York and ethical reflections in the digital age

2016 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 372-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jasmine Erdener
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
Ethical Reflections

scholarly journals Live From New York, It's the Fake News!Saturday Night Liveand the (Non)Politics of Parody

2012 ◽  
Vol 10 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 170-182 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amber Day ◽  
Ethan Thompson
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Saturday Night
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