Topics in Gender and Sexuality Studies (390-0-20)

Topic

Witches, Bots & Trolls: Misinformation in Society

Instructors

Ann Kathryn Wilkinson

Meeting Info

ANTHRO Sem Rm 104 - 1810 Hinmn: Tues, Thurs 12:30PM - 1:50PM

Overview of class

Topic: Witches, Bots, and Trolls: Misinformation in Society.

This course surveys the social scientific study of misinformation in society. We will query the past to learn about how misinformation has evolved over time as a sociocultural feature of human societies. We will interrogate the present to examine how misinformation figures in the defining political, social, and economic problems of our time. And we will imagine the implications of misinformation for the future and explore our agency in shaping that future. We will draw on case studies, documentaries, and anthropological and social scientific literature on rumor and gossip, conspiracy theories, post-truth politics, deradicalization, and social media to explore topics and concepts such as "fake news," digital populism, algorithmic bias, weaponized disinformation, the "infodemic," deep fakes, and more. Case studies may include COVID-19, election, and climate change denialism; political conspiracy theories from the French Revolution to QAnon; troll farms and other tactics of information warfare; and the role of misinformation in current controversies over sexual & racial politics.

Teaching Method

Seminar; Lecture; Small group work

Class Materials (Required)

*Rid, Thomas. Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2020 ISBN: 9780374287269.

*O'Connor, Cailin, and James Owen Weatherall. The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2019. [Digital Copy @Northwestern].

*Singer, P. W., and Emerson T. Brooking. Likewar: The Weaponization of Social Media. Boston: Eamon Dolan/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2018.

*Demos, John. The Enemy within: 2,000 Years of Witch-Hunting in the Western World. 2008.