Fake News – What It Is and What It Is Not with Paul Levinson

Listen to the Full Episode:

Thank you for joining me yet again for another thought-provoking episode of THINK BIGGER, THINK BETTER – today’s topic is ‘fake news’.   Today’s guest is Paul Levinson, PhD, – an expert on contemporary media, an expert on fake news, and serial author of science fiction books.

To give you a little more background on Paul, he is Professor of Communication & Media Studies at Fordham University in NYC. His books include New New Media, and McLuhan in an Age of Social Media. His stories and novels have been nominated for Hugo, Nebula, Sturgeon, Edgar, Prometheus, and Audie Awards. He appears on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, the History Channel, NPR, and numerous TV and radio programs.  He reviews television in his InfiniteRegress.tv blog and was listed in The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s “Top 10 Academic Twitterers” in 2009.

Today, Paul explains to us what Fake News really is, how it affects our democracy, and what we as citizens can do about it. This is a very timely discussion for all of us to acknowledge how our media has changed and whether or not it can be reformed.

If you’ve been confused about how to spot Fake News and how seriously you should take its spread, listen in to today’s discussion!

What You’ll Learn from this Episode:

• What Fake News is and what citizens can do about it?  (See https://paulgibbons.net/oldsite/fake-news-three-kinds/ for my definition.)
• Is there a difference between error and intentional deceit?
• Is CNN fake news?
• How we might reform the media/social media?
• The implications for free speech and the 1st Amendment.
• The relationship between fake news and authoritarian government.
• How does net neutrality affect our information space?

Featured on the Show:

• Fake News in Real Contexts by Paul Levinson
• New New Media by Paul Levinson
• McLuhan in an Age of Social Media by Paul Levinson
• 1984 by George Orwell
• Escape from Freedom by Erich Fromm
• On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century by Timothy Snyder
• The Once and Future Liberal: After Identity Politics by Mark Lilla
• Age of Anger: A History of the Present by Pankaj Mishra
• TV Show: Dark
• TV Show: Erased
• TV Show: Narcos
• TV Show: Black Mirror
• TV Show: Travelers
• TV Show: Westworld

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