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Bad News: Why We Fall for Fake News

Bad News: Why We Fall for Fake News

Current price: $28.00
Publication Date: May 12th, 2020
Publisher:
Bloomsbury Sigma
ISBN:
9781472962850
Pages:
352

Description

Psychologist Rob Brotherton asks, "how can we all be smarter consumers of news?"

Today we carry the news with us, getting instant alerts about events around the globe. And yet despite this unprecedented abundance of information, it seems increasingly difficult to know what's true and what's not. In Bad News, Rob Brotherton delves into the psychology of news, reviewing how psychological research can help navigate this post-truth world. Which buzzwords describe psychological reality, and which are empty sound bites? How much of this news is unprecedented, and how much is business as usual? Are we doomed to fall for fake news, or is fake news ... fake news?

Much psychological research attempts to answer the fundamental questions lurking behind fake news. How do we form our beliefs, and why do we end up believing things that are wrong? How much information can we possibly process, and what is the internet doing to our attention spans? This brilliant book presents psychological research pertaining to one of the great concerns of the age: how can we all be smarter consumers of news?

About the Author

Rob Brotherton is an academic psychologist and science writer who likes to walk on the weird side of psychology. Rob completed a doctoral degree on the psychology of conspiracy theories, and taught classes on why people believe weird stuff and science communication as a member of the Anomalistic Psychology Research Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. He now lives in New York City.
Rob writes about conspiracy theories on his website ConspiracyPsychology.com.

Praise for Bad News: Why We Fall for Fake News

"[The] book is a good entry point if one wishes to understand the current state of Journalism and much talked about ‘fake news’ phenomenon." -The National Herald