Mis/Disinformation and Democratic Society

Melissa Zimdars is an associate professor in the Department of Communication and Media at Merrimack College, USA. Her work on mis/disinformation has appeared in numerous academic and popular outlets, including New Media and Society, Social Media + Society, International Journal of Communication, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, the Chronicle Review, and the Washington Post. She has also delivered several keynote lectures about mis/disinformation for local, national, and international professional and academic organizations, and has been interviewed about fake news and mis/disinformation by dozens of news outlets around the world, including the Washington Post, Boston Globe, NPR, BBC, Wall Street Journal, USA Today, Scientific American.

• List of FiguresList of ContributorsSeries Editor ForwardIntroduction: Mis/Disinformation and Democratic SocietyMelissa ZimdarsChapter 1: Theorizing the Role of Mis/Disinformation, Digital Democracy, and the Public SphereIvanka Pjesivac and Alexia LittleChapter 2: Automating Deception: Generative AI, Disinformation, and the Future of the Liberal Public SphereHeather WaltersChapter 3: Don’t Blame the Victim for the System: How Paywalls, Bad Digital Design, Prohibitions on Political Talk, and Streaming TV Undermine News LiteracyNikki UsherChapter 4: News Industry Crises, the Specter of Objectivity, and the Laundering and Amplification of Political DisinformationMelissa ZimdarsChapter 5: Political Misinformation Over the Last DecadeErik Schlicht Chapter 6: Conspiracy AestheticsRobert N. SpicerChapter 7: ‘Link in Bio’: Fake Cancer Cures, Radicalization Pathways and Online Harms on TikTokStephanie Alice BakerChapter 8: Emotion and Misinformation Acceptance During Public Health Crises: Validation of the Emotional Congruence Hypothesis with the Emotion of HopeKilhoe NaChapter 9: Inoculation: An Antidote to Protect Against the Influence of Disinformation About OrganizationsMichel M. Haigh, Erin Hester, and Youjeong Kim.Chapter 10: Understanding the Third Person Effect in the Context of Online Hate Speech and DisinformationTravis Loof and Jody-Ann TysonIndex