Disinformation and Democracy

Now & Then

Vox Media Podcast Network

News, Society & Culture, History, News Commentary

4.9 • 3.7K Ratings

🗓️ 7 December 2021

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

What damage does disinformation cause our body politic? On this episode of Now & Then, “Disinformation and Democracy,” Heather Cox Richardson and Joanne Freeman trace the history of disinformation in America, with an emphasis on how technology has fueled the rise of misleading and outright false political news. They discuss the role of the partisan press in shaping early American disinformation, the development of the telegraph in 19th century information warfare, and the rise of GOP-led dirty tricks campaigns over the last fifty years, and the glut of disinformation shaping our current landscape. How have malign actors used our information technology to wreak confusion and discord? And how can we protect our democracy against disinformation as we move forth? Join CAFE Insider to listen to “Backstage,” where Heather and Joanne chat each week about the anecdotes and ideas that formed the episode. Head to: www.cafe.com/history. Sign up for the CAFE Brief, a free weekly newsletter that features analysis of news at the intersection of law, politics, and history: cafe.com/brief For references & supplemental materials, head to: cafe.com/now-and-then/disinformation-and-democracy The executive producer is Tamara Sepper. The editorial producer is David Kurlander. The audio producer is Matthew Billy. The Now & Then theme music was composed by Nat Weiner. The Cafe team is Adam Waller, David Tatasciore, Sam Ozer-Staton, Noa Azulai, and Jake Kaplan. Now & Then is presented by CAFE and the Vox Media Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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1:02.3	From Cafe and the Vox Media Podcast Network, this is now and then.
1:10.1	I'm Heather Cox Richardson and I'm Joanne Freeman. Today we're going to be talking about
1:14.7	something which, in a sense, will not be a surprise to anyone listening because I'm
1:18.9	sure in one way or another you've all been thinking about it, we're going to be
1:23.1	talking about disinformation. Now it's worth saying at the outset here that we don't
1:28.2	mean misinformation, which basically is wrong information. We mean disinformation,
1:35.3	meaning deliberately misleading information, which we've been seeing all over the place
1:41.3	really for really over the course of the last few years. But just in the last week or
1:45.1	two, we saw some examples of it that stood out so much that you and I had to talk about
	...

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