When Derek Foster saw a cautionary NBC News story on a wave of social media misinformation about sunscreen use \u2014 and expert efforts to combat it \u2014 he was far from surprised.<\/p>\n
The Associate Professor in the Department of Communication, Popular Culture and Film has spent the summer digging into conspiracy theories, propaganda and other language-based public manipulation tactics to prepare for his upcoming course on Language and Public Communication.<\/p>\n
Students in COMM 3P51 will tackle the ways language is used to manipulate others from public relations to fake news.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt can be easy to suggest how others \u2014 especially those we don\u2019t agree with \u2014 are subject to being manipulated, but we all are,\u201d says Foster. \u201cWe all believe things, but where do those beliefs come from and how do they take shape? And what does it mean when we share those beliefs in increasingly narrow and more polarized discourses?\u201d<\/p>\n
The course will also examine how to resist and contend with the issue of language and manipulation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis isn\u2019t just about politicians, but the politics of everyday life,\u201d Foster says. \u201cWhen \u2018truthiness\u2019 was a word of the year in 2006, it seemed more constrained to satirical news, but when \u2018post-truth\u2019 was a word-of-the-year in 2016 and \u2018fake news\u2019 made the list in 2017, it signalled that something more fundamental was afoot.\u201d<\/p>\n
While misuse of language is nothing new, the digital age has brought about an onslaught fed by algorithms, engagement and ad revenue, to say nothing of deep fakes and artificial intelligence. It\u2019s a landscape that Foster believes students from many different fields can benefit from understanding.<\/p>\n
\u201cParticipatory culture and interactive media make it easier for users to contribute their own voices, recirculating what they have embraced in metaphorical halls of mirrors that become self-reinforcing,\u201d he says. \u201cCalling for fact-checking and media literacy seem to be inadequate measures when we can cherry-pick convenient facts and the truth-claims that make sense to us.\u201d<\/p>\n
He says he is looking forward to engaging with students on these topics and hearing their ideas for resisting the pull of a comfortable information bubble.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere is no person who is not potentially misled and no media that is unbiased,\u201d says Foster. \u201cStudents from all majors are welcome to join, because whether we like it or not, we are all living in what\u2019s been termed a post-truth media environment, so let\u2019s figure out how to better equip ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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