Source: The New republic
by Colin Dickey
“Fighting misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories can feel like being that child running counterclockwise. Spreading info to fight the spread of disinfo can sometimes backfire: True believers double down, and those in the middle sometimes simply throw up their hands claiming they ‘don’t know who to believe anymore.’ Everything is already a mess, but trying to undo the damage can often feel like it just adds more mess — and by the end you’re exhausted from running in circles. Annalee Newitz’s Stories Are Weapons: Psychological Warfare and the American Mind attempts to shift this focus away from simply facts toward, as its title implies, the stories we tell about facts.” (06/27/24)