Mobilizing the Fringe: How Fake News Undermines Democracy, and What to Do About It

By Marcel C Ernst

The late Marshall McLuhan (1911-80) proclaimed during the 1960s that "the medium is the message." After his death the global village he had predicted became a reality. In the second half of the 1990s sociologist Manuel Castells published an influential trilogy of books, "The Information Age: Economy, Society and Culture," which documented the shift to a network society where information becomes the primary component. With the arrival and spread of the internet Information sources increased exponentially - a cacophony of posts and voices that vie for consumer attention with shrill messages. On the other hand, since 2000 we have seen a convergence in production, distribution and consumption. Six companies control much of the US media. The journalist's traditional tools, dispassionate analysis and verification of sources, have receded into the background, while social media has brought a proliferation of fake news. The New York Times called the 2010s "The Decade When Tech Lost Its Way." Society thrives on information that promotes knowledge. Serious media outlets have enjoyed a reputation to promote the latter. But the rise of social media in the early 21st century has often brought quantitative rather than qualitative progress. During the 1980s the critical theorist J rgen Habermas popularized the concept of communicative rationality, which refers to information stripped of sophistry and partisan bias to promote reason. Only an educated, critical citizenry can approach this ideal. In my 2015 book "Bringing Political Participation into the 21st Century" I sought to present the benefits of unfettered Internet access to promote democracy. Best practices could be applied in various jurisdictions by drawing lessons from progressive democracies, or so I thought. Unfortunately, I underestimated the bad guys. Hiding behind the web's anonymity they have thrown a wrench into a number of elections and plebiscites. Brexit and Trump's election in 2016 turned out to be the most blatant examples, but damage has been done in many other countries. A significant number of voters has been duped and intimidated into voting for strongmen on horseback who could deliver them from evil; others have been enticed to stay away from the ballot box altogether. We appear to have entered a new age of anxiety and irrationalism, along with the decline of civic culture.Nothing less than the integrity of our democratic systems is at stake. UK Guardian journalist Carole Cadwalladr posed the question in the aftermath of the Cambridge Analytica scandal: "Is it possible to have a free and fair election ever again?" It is, but only if we learn to scrutinize information more critically and rationally, enforce better standards, and deter those who would do us ill online. Leadership and mentorship are necessary but insufficient conditions of this process. We must not falter now. Thirty years after the revolutions of 1989, when the Iron Curtain fell, freedom came to many who had not known it before. Some painful adjustments followed, but the progress in human rights, economic self-sufficiency and more sustainable living since then has been real. It would be unforgivable to forfeit those gains by giving in to fear or prejudice and put up walls again. The open society must not die, and hard-won civil rights must not be eroded. My hope is that this work will contribute to ending the global slide towards authoritarianism.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1981286276
• ISBN13: 9781981286270
• Release Date: December 2019
• Publisher: Createspace Independent Publishing Platform
• Length: 110 Pages
• Weight: 0.35 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.2" x 6.0" x 9.0"