PDI Seminar Series – Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics

Author Yochai Benkler sits down with Kelly Born to discuss Network Propaganda: Manipulation, Disinformation, and Radicalization in American Politics. According to the New Yorker, the Washington conventional wisdom presupposes a kind of symmetry between our polarized political parties. Liberals and conservatives, it is said, live in separate bubbles, where they watch different television networks, frequent different Web sites, and absorb different realities. The implication of this view is that both sides resemble each other in their twisted views of reality. Network Propaganda challenges that received wisdom through the most comprehensive study yet published on media coverage of American presidential politics from the start of the election cycle in April 2015 to the one year anniversary of the Trump presidency. Analyzing millions of news stories together with Twitter and Facebook shares, broadcast television and YouTube, the book provides a comprehensive overview of the architecture of contemporary American political communications. Through data analysis and detailed qualitative case studies of coverage of immigration, Clinton scandals, and the Trump Russia investigation, the book finds that “the right-wing media ecosystem differs categorically from the rest of the media environment,” and has been much more susceptible to “disinformation, lies and half-truths.”

Register for this free event online at:  pacscenter.stanford.edu/event

6:00—6:30 PM  Doors Open and Pre-Reception

6:30—7:30 PM  Program 7:30—8:00 PM

Q&A 8:00—8:30 PM  Book Signing and Post-Reception