SPIA event March 19: 'Misinformation, Disinformation, and Media in Democracy'

Alisyn Camarota is a twice Emmy-nominated television journalist with over 30 years of experience. She previously worked at Fox News and has been at CNN since 2014. She has served as host for programs such as “New Day” and “CNN Tonight.” She has anchored numerous primetime specials, and her conversations with voters in the 2016 and 2020 elections were vital to CNN’s coverage. She is also the author of the novel “Amanda Wakes Up.” 

Nick Anspach works with experimental survey methods to study the effects of social media on political beliefs. Some interesting specific findings are that people rely on family and friends’ endorsements and comments, often learning false information from those comments, rather than learning factual information contained in the linked articles. Also, findings show that exposure to both implicitly and explicitly racist Donald Trump tweets increases the willingness of people to express negative views of minorities and that a significant cohort of voters has false views prior to exposure to “fake news.” 

Dannagal G. Young has published on the nature and role of political satire and outrage driven media, the politics of COVID-19 and various other public opinion issues. The anchoring thread for her research involves understanding the epistemological and cognitive processes most commonly appealed to by liberals and conservatives, using this framing to help understand why some beliefs become widespread. She has also done a tremendous amount of public facing work (Vox, New York Times, the Atlantic, etc.), including a very successful TED Talk. Her latest book, “Wrong,” examines the appetite for misinformation and how the media feeds into it. That is, why are people willing — even eager — to believe things that are wrong and how is this used and reinforced by the media eco-system? The book looks at the “big picture” of how affective partisanship, polarization and sorting have combined with a fractured media environment to create an (asymmetrical) appetite for certain kinds of non-falsifiable information and an apparatus eager to feed it.

Featured image at top of Clifton Court Hall. Photo/UC Marketing + Brand.