Nolan Higdon

Last updated
Nolan Higdon
Born
Nolan Higdon

(1983-11-03) November 3, 1983 (age 40)
Owensboro, Kentucky, U.S.
Occupations
  • University Lecturer
  • Author
  • Podcaster
  • Filmmaker
Academic background
Alma mater University of California, Davis, B.A. 2009, San Diego State University, M.A. 2012, San Francisco State University, Ed.D. 2017 [1]

Nolan Higdon (born November 3, 1983) is a critical media literacy scholar and media personality. He is also an author and university lecturer of history and media studies. Higdon has been a lecturer at University of California, Santa Cruz [1] and California State University, East Bay. [2] Higdon is considered an expert in critical media literacy, [3] digital culture, [4] higher education, [5] journalism, fake news, and news media history. [3] Higdon is frequently featured as an expert voice in documentaries and news outlets such as ABC, [6] CBS, [7] CNBC, [8] NewsNation, [9] NBC, [10] New York Times, [11] PBS, [12] and the San Francisco Chronicle. [13]

Contents

Life

Higdon's education focused on History, Latin American Studies, and Critical Media Literacy Education. [1] In the 2010s, Higdon began writing for Project Censored. One of his first pieces to garner attention was a biography of internet personality Alex Jones. [14]

In 2019, Higdon co-wrote United States of Distraction Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It), with Mickey Huff. Higdon and Huff argue that the implementation of neoliberal policies in the 1970s created weaknesses in the U.S. news media system that Donald Trump exploited. They argued that a dramatic transformation of the U.S. media and education system were needed to strengthen American democracy. The text was lauded by progressives [15] and criticized by conservatives. [16]

In The Anatomy of Fake News (University of California Press, 2020), Higdon argued that the U.S. has always wrestled with fake news. Rather than panic, democracies can mitigate the influence of fake news by making critical news literacy education available to the citizenry. [17] Higdon warned that treating government regulation and censorship as a solution to fake news empowers corporations and government to determine what is true and what is false for citizens. [17] Robin Blom mostly lauded Higdon for making “a convincing argument throughout the book about the need for critical approaches in news literacy education.” However, Blom lamented that “Higdon doubled down on using fake news. Whether he is talking about hoaxes, propaganda, or petty lies…The consistency is praiseworthy, but it also brings us back to square one: What is the actual value of the phrase in public discourse when applied to such a wide range of communication forms?” [18] Wayne Journell celebrated Higdon's history of fake news arguing that it “provides much-needed context for those struggling to understand both the complexities of fake news and how we arrived at the misinformation era we find ourselves in.” Journell wrote “Higdon is at his strongest when providing historical context.” However, Journell's “main criticism” of the book was Higdon's “underlying assumption that consumers of information want accurate information.” [19]

In The Podcaster's Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism (Wiley-Blackwell, 2022), Higdon and Nicholas L. Baham III surveyed a 100 podcasts to determine how media makers are using podcasting as a space of decolonization. [20] In a review of The Podcaster's Dilemma, University of Toronto’s L. Dugan Nichols said Higdon and Baham “excel at categorizing the gamut of subversive podcasting, informing readers how the hosts of various shows “confront dominant ideologies” (p. 6) through inquiry, criticism, and “cultural reformulation” (p. 6)—which entails the telling of narratives from a subaltern position.” However, Nichols summation of the text was mixed, “Ultimately, The Podcaster’s Dilemma contains ambiguities and omissions that prevent a more nuanced exploration into the world of leftist podcasting. However, academics conducting research in this area would be remiss to neglect this book. It is an essential read for anyone seeking insight on the resistant potential of a digital medium.” [20]

Views

Higdon regularly publishes op-eds on media, education, and politics. [21] [22] [13] [23] [24]

Education

Much of Higdon's work focuses on calling for critical media literacy education to adopted more widely in U.S. schools. In 2023, he warned that schools need to be more proactive in designing and adopting critical media literacy as the rapid innovation in AI in creating complications that beg for critical media literacy education such as deepfakes. [25] [21]

Politics

Higdon has been a critic of partisanship and routinely criticizes the policies and positions of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party. Higdon's work often centers hyperpartisanship as the biggest threat to democracy. [26] [27] Higdon has accused news media of fostering hyper-partisanship to maximize profits. He claims that news media's hyperpartisan approach to reporting conceals where both the Democratic Party and Republican Party agree such as electoral denialism, [28] federal production of reproductive rights, [29] [30] and free speech. [17] As a result, news audiences end uninformed or misinformed. [17]

Free Speech and Censorship

Higdon claims to be an anti-censorship personality and free speech advocate. [31] [32] [33] He has been highly critical of both the Democratic Party and Republican Party for using fake news as a proxy to censor individuals and organizations. [17] Higdon has argued that the Twitter Files reveal that the government – regardless of the party in power – engages in censorship by proxy when they pressure Big Tech to censor content. [17] [34] [35] [36] Higdon wrote "Those interested in protecting Constitutional rights and resisting this intolerance on college campuses today should not necessarily count on liberals to help them. Indeed, it is difficult to take liberal commitments to Constitutional rights seriously when they have been gleefully supporting censorship. Similarly, it is abundantly clear that many conservatives have very limited, ideologically circumstantial commitments to civil rights and free expression." [37] Higdon has been highly critical of the news media's coverage of Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. He argues that when it comes to free speech, to focus on Musk is to miss how the entire industry of Big Tech manipulates and exploits users. [7] [9] [13] [38] [39] [40] Michael Rectenwald concluded that the critiques of Elon Musk demonstrated that Higdon was anti-free speech [41]

Media

Higdon is highly critical of Big Tech. [10] He claims that Big Tech spreads propaganda to convince audiences that it is an industry motivated by altruism, but in reality, it is just another greedy and corrupt industry that swindles people. [23] [9] [13] Higdon has accused Big Tech of concealing efforts to swindle and exploit schools with altruistic motives such as donating chrome books to schools. [12] Higdon and co-author Allison Butler from University of Massachusetts, Amherst in USA Today explained “Schools are becoming the testing ground for new surveillance technologies in large part because compulsory education makes the vast majority of young people in America a captive audience. Often introduced under the guise of safety, surveillance technologies collect copious amounts of data, beyond what might be needed for educational purposes.” [22]

Selected bibliography

Selected publications

Related Research Articles

Project Censored is an American nonprofit media watchdog organization. The group's stated mission is to "educate students and the public about the importance of a truly free press for democratic self-government."

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Elon Musk</span> Businessman (born 1971)

Elon Reeve Musk is a businessman and investor. He is the founder, chairman, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; angel investor, CEO, product architect, and former chairman of Tesla, Inc.; owner, executive chairman, and CTO of X Corp.; founder of the Boring Company and xAI; co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI; and president of the Musk Foundation. He is one of the wealthiest people in the world, with an estimated net worth of US$232 billion as of December 2023, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, and $182.6 billion according to Forbes, primarily from his ownership stakes in Tesla and SpaceX.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Talulah Riley</span> English actress (born 1985)

Talulah Jane Riley-Milburn is an English actress. She has appeared in films, including Pride & Prejudice (2005), St Trinian's (2007) and its sequel St Trinian's 2: The Legend of Fritton's Gold (2009), The Boat That Rocked (2009), and Inception (2010). She has also appeared on the HBO science fiction western series Westworld (2016–2018) and the FX biographical miniseries Pistol (2022).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gary Gensler</span> American banker (born 1957)

Gary Gensler is an American government official and former Goldman Sachs investment banker serving as the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Gensler previously led the Biden–Harris transition's Federal Reserve, Banking, and Securities Regulators agency review team. Prior to his appointment, he was professor of Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Twitter</span> American social networking service

X, commonly referred to by its former name Twitter, is a social media website based in the United States. With over 500 million users, it is one of the world's largest social networks. Users can share and post text messages, images, and videos known historically as "tweets". X also includes direct messaging, video and audio calling, bookmarks, lists and communities, and Spaces, a social audio feature. Users can vote on context added by approved users using the Community Notes feature. Although the service is now called X, the primary domain name 'twitter.com' remains in place as of February 2024, with the 'x.com' URL redirecting to that address. Links shared from the app are copied as 'x.com'.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Censorship</span> Suppression of speech or other information

Censorship is the suppression of speech, public communication, or other information. This may be done on the basis that such material is considered objectionable, harmful, sensitive, or "inconvenient". Censorship can be conducted by governments, private institutions, and other controlling bodies.

A media prank is a type of media event, perpetrated by staged speeches, activities, or press releases, designed to trick legitimate journalists into publishing erroneous or misleading articles. The term may also refer to such stories if planted by fake journalists, as well as the false story thereby published. A media prank is a form of culture jamming generally done as performance art or a practical joke for purposes of a humorous critique of mass media.

<i>The Babylon Bee</i> Satirical website

The Babylon Bee is a conservative Christian news satire website that publishes satirical articles on topics including religion, politics, current events, and public figures. It has been referred to as a Christian or conservative version of The Onion.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">TSLAQ</span> Group of people who criticize Tesla, Inc.

TSLAQ is a loose, international collective of largely anonymous short-sellers, skeptics, and researchers who openly criticize Tesla, Inc. and its CEO Elon Musk. The group primarily organizes on Twitter, often using the $TSLAQ cashtag, and Reddit to coordinate efforts and share news, opinions, and analysis about the company and its stock. Edward Niedermeyer, in his book Ludicrous: The Unvarnished Story of Tesla Motors (2019), establishes the catalyst for the formation of TSLAQ in July 2018 to be the doxxing by a Twitter user of Lawrence Fossi, a Seeking Alpha writer and Tesla short seller who uses the pseudonym Montana Skeptic.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ken Klippenstein</span> American journalist (born 1988)

Ken Klippenstein is an American journalist working at The Intercept. Prior to joining The Intercept, Klippenstein was the D.C. Correspondent at The Nation and previously a senior investigative reporter for the online news program The Young Turks. His work has also appeared in The Daily Beast,Salon, and other publications. His reporting focuses on U.S. federal and national security matters as well as corporate controversies.

Elon Musk is the CEO or owner of multiple companies including Tesla, SpaceX, and X Corp, and has expressed many views on a wide variety of subjects, ranging from politics to science.

Truth Social is an alt-tech social media platform created by Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG), an American media and technology company founded in October 2021 by former US president Donald Trump. It has been called a "Twitter clone" that competes with Parler, Gab, and Mastodon in trying to provide an alternative to Twitter and Facebook. Truth Social uses Mastodon as its backend.

Jack Sweeney is an American programmer and entrepreneur. In 2022, he became known for creating Twitter bots to track the private jets of Russian oligarchs and other prominent individuals, including Elon Musk through the ElonJet account, and Taylor Swift.

Business magnate Elon Musk initiated an acquisition of American social media company Twitter, Inc. on April 14, 2022, and concluded it on October 27, 2022. Musk had begun buying shares of the company in January 2022, becoming its largest shareholder by April with a 9.1 percent ownership stake. Twitter invited Musk to join its board of directors, an offer he initially accepted before declining. On April 14, Musk made an unsolicited offer to purchase the company, to which Twitter's board responded with a "poison pill" strategy to resist a hostile takeover before unanimously accepting Musk's buyout offer of $44 billion on April 25. Musk stated that he planned to introduce new features to the platform, make its algorithms open-source, combat spambot accounts, and promote free speech.

Angelo Carusone is an American author and media advocate. He is the president of Media Matters for America, a nonprofit media watchdog. Carusone has also led political and progressive initiatives such as Dump Trump and StopBeck campaigns.

Rahul Ligma is a fictional fired Twitter employee, a character played by one of a pair of amateur improvisational actors that pranked multiple major media outlets on October 28, 2022. Ligma, the fictional character's surname, is a reference to the Ligma joke. The spontaneous and intentionally transparent hoax was revealed the same day, after the initial news coverage triggered debate among real Twitter employees about whether or not expected mass layoffs had already started. The Rahul Ligma character next appeared in early November as a recently unemployed FTX employee in the Bahamas. On November 15, Elon Musk, the incoming CEO of Twitter, facetiously offered Ligma and his compatriot their (fictional) old jobs back, and posted a photograph taken with them at Twitter headquarters. Although at least one journalist had publicly apologized for their failure to fact check before reporting the news, several notable media outlets were still oblivious to the running joke, and reported the duo's firing and rehiring as actual news. In social media, the follow-up stunt was widely criticized for lack of sensitivity to actual Twitter employees who had lost their jobs. On November 23, news reports surfaced once again, this time reporting that the actor playing Daniel Johnson had in fact been hired by Twitter for the first time.

The Twitter Files are a series of releases of select internal Twitter, Inc. documents published from December 2022 through March 2023 on Twitter. CEO Elon Musk gave the documents to journalists Matt Taibbi, Bari Weiss, Lee Fang, and authors Michael Shellenberger, David Zweig and Alex Berenson shortly after he acquired Twitter on October 27, 2022. Taibbi and Weiss coordinated the publication of the documents with Musk, releasing details of the files as a series of Twitter threads.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">ElonJet</span> Social media account tracking Elon Musks jet

ElonJet is a service that uses social media accounts to track the real-time private airplane usage of Elon Musk. The service, created and provided by Jack Sweeney using public data, has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, Telegram, Truth Social, Mastodon, Threads, and formerly on Twitter, where the Twitter account once had about 530,000 followers, before being suspended. Several of the social media accounts use the handle @elonjet.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">December 2022 Twitter suspensions</span> Suspension of journalists from Twitter

On December 15, 2022, Twitter suspended the accounts of ten journalists who have covered the company and its owner, Elon Musk. They included reporters Keith Olbermann, Steven L. Herman, and Donie O'Sullivan, and journalists from The New York Times, The Washington Post, CNN, and The Intercept. The suspensions came after an incident that occurred on December 14, when Musk's 2-year-old son was followed by a stalker while he was traveling in a car, the stalker thought Musk was in the car. Musk said the accounts had violated a policy on doxxing. Posters on behalf of the owners of the accounts were quick to claim that the suspensions were permanent before Musk clarified account access would be restricted for seven days. Some of the accounts were restored earlier.

Elon Musk completed his acquisition of Twitter in October 2022; Musk acted as CEO of Twitter until June 2023 when he was succeeded by Linda Yaccarino. Twitter was then rebranded to X in July 2023. Initially during Musk's tenure, Twitter introduced a series of reforms and management changes; the company reinstated a number of previously banned accounts, reduced the workforce by approximately 80%, closed one of Twitter's three data centers, and largely eliminated the content moderation team, replacing it with the crowd-sourced fact-checking system Community Notes.

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Nolan Higdon". University of California Santa Cruz. Retrieved February 11, 2022.
  2. ↑ Higdon, Nolan. "History Department". California State University, East Bay. Retrieved 11 February 2022.
  3. 1 2 Riggio, Olivia (15 December 2020). "Not All Media Literacy Programs Are Created Equal—and Most Have Yet to Be Created". FAIR.
  4. ↑ Fogarty, Morgan (16 April 2022). "Is Elon Musk Owning Twitter A Bad Idea?". FAIR.
  5. ↑ Higdon, Nolan (2023). "Being on the Outside of the Inside of the Ivory Tower: Nontenured Part-Time Faculty's Attitudes Toward Their Colleagues and Management". Journal of Education Human Resources: e20220014. doi:10.3138/jehr-2022-0014. S2CID   255881365.
  6. ↑ "President Trump meets Russian President Vladimir Putin - CSU professor offers his take". ABC7.
  7. 1 2 Lee, Mary (3 November 2022). "Looming staff cuts create tense atmosphere around Twitter". CBS.
  8. ↑ Leonhardt, Megan (9 June 2021). "MIDDLE-AGED MILLENNIALS Only 12% of older millennials would run for political office—far fewer than any other generation". CNBC.
  9. 1 2 3 Entin, Brian; Jassin, Liz (2 July 2022). "American oligarchs: Inside the minds of this country's wealthiest people". NewsNation.
  10. 1 2 Mathai, Raj. "Raj Mathai A Closer Look at Facebook's Whistle-Blower's Testimony". NBC.
  11. ↑ Bromwich, Jonah Engel; Wertheim, Bonnie (20 February 2017). "Does Bigfoot Have a Soul? A Radio Host's Audience Ponders". The New York Times.
  12. 1 2 Hartmann, Tom. "Did Big Tech Make Big Money Spying on Your Kids Featuring Nolan Higdon". Tom Hartmann YouTube Channel.
  13. 1 2 3 4 Higdon, Nolan (2 September 2022). "Zuckerberg interview with Joe Rogan was public relations propaganda". San Francisco Chronicle.
  14. ↑ Barrett, Kevin (28 October 2013). "Project Censored's Nolan Higdon defends his critique of Alex Jones_on The Kevin Barrett Show". Kevin Barrett’s TRUTH JIHAD RADIO. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  15. ↑ Stockwell, Norman (October 2019). "What's Wrong with the Media". The Progressive.
  16. ↑ Hardy, Michael (11 July 2019). "Book Review: Scapegoatting The Media Ignores Other Major Problems in American Politics". Texas Observer. Retrieved 16 February 2022.
  17. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Higdon, Nolan. "The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education". UC Press. US Press. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  18. ↑ Blom, Robin (2021). "Book Review: The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education, BY Nolan Higdon and The Psychology of Fake News: Accepting, Sharing, and Correcting Misinformation, by Rainer Greifeneder, Mariela E. Jaffé, Eryn J. Newman, and Norbert Schwarz (Eds.)". Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. JMCQ. 98 (3): 968–971. doi:10.1177/10776990211021795. S2CID   236300196 . Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  19. ↑ Journell, Wayne (2022). "Review: The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education, by Nolan Higdon". California History. UC Press. 99 (3): 74–76. doi:10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.74. S2CID   251336097 . Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  20. 1 2 3 Nichols, L. Dugan (2023). "Book Review: The Podcaster's Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism, by Nicholas L. Baham III & Nolan Higdon". Television & New Media. 24 (7): 842–845. doi: 10.1177/15274764221146187 . S2CID   255706534.
  21. 1 2 Higdon, Nolan; Boyington, Ben (19 March 2019). "Has Media Literacy Been Hijacked?". Project Censored.
  22. 1 2 Butler, Allison; Higdon, Nolan. "Strangers are spying on your child. And schools are paying them to do it". USA Today.
  23. 1 2 Higdon, Nolan (27 April 2022). "Elon Musk and the oligarchs of the 'Second Gilded Age' can not only sway the public – they can exploit their data, too". The Conversation.
  24. ↑ Higdon, Nolan (5 August 2022). "Chris Cuomo's comeback tour: Elite lapdogs are always welcome Cuomo's return after being exposed as a propagandist shows how corporate media types aren't held accountable". Salon.
  25. ↑ Higdon, Nolan. "Seeing isn't believing: From Gaza to US politics, deepfake videos are peddling fake news". USA Today .
  26. 1 2 Hedges, Chris (7 January 2023). "The Chris Hedges Report: Mickey Huff & Nolan Higden on the Disappearance of Democratic Debate and Dialogue in America". Scheer Post.
  27. ↑ Shields, Lauren. "Dr. Nolan Higdon discusses hyper-partisanship, sensationalism in the media, and the weaponizing of "fake news."". UC Press. PropWatch. Retrieved 14 January 2023.
  28. ↑ Higdon, Nolan; Huff, Mickey (31 October 2022). "Election denial and the Big Lie". Salon.
  29. ↑ Novielli, Carole (8 July 2022). "ANALYSIS Division grows among pro-abortion organizations: 'No one's able to say how bad it is'". The Live Action.
  30. ↑ Higdon, Nolan; Huff, Mickey (3 July 2022). "Defund the Democrats". Salon.
  31. ↑ Higdon, Nolan (14 October 2022). "How "media literacy" became the new "fake news"". Salon.
  32. ↑ Higdon, Nolan (23 April 2022). "Media gets it wrong on Elon Musk and Twitter". Salon.
  33. ↑ Higdon, Nolan. "The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education". UC Press.
  34. ↑ Scott, Mike. "Lecturer of history and media studies, Nolan Higdon, on how to agree to disagree". AM560.
  35. ↑ Hedges, Chris. "Why Americans can't debate politics anymore The Chris Hedges Report". RealNewsNetwork.
  36. ↑ Project Censored, Real News Netowrk (5 May 2021). "THE LONG SILI-CON: POWER & CENSORSHIP IN THE DIGITAL ERA BY TRNN AND PROJECT CENSORED". RealNewsNetwork.
  37. ↑ Higdon, Nolan (8 November 2023). "The Bi-Partisan Hypocrisy on Campus Censorship The Response to Recent College Protests Reveals Conservatives and Liberals are Hypocrites when it comes to Civil Rights". SarcasticScholar .
  38. ↑ "Twitter Deal on Hold?". NBC.
  39. ↑ "Elon Musk's bid for Twitter poses threat to Democracy, says CSU professor". KRON. 22 April 2022.
  40. ↑ Phan, RSuzanne. "ABC News: Quick Bite #:1 To Censor or Not to Censor Twitter--Prof Nolan Higdon, CSU East Bay". YouTube.
  41. ↑ Rectenwald, Michael. "Elon Musk's Twitter Gambit and What It Means to the 'Clique in Power'". Ron Paul .
  42. ↑ "The Media and Me". Kirkus Reviews.
  43. ↑ Journell, Wayne; Goldman, J. (1 August 2022). "Review: The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education , by Nolan Higdon". California History. 99 (3): 74–76. doi:10.1525/ch.2022.99.3.74. S2CID   251336097.
  44. ↑ Blom, Robin (September 2021). "Book Review: The Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education , by Nolan Higdon and The Psychology of Fake News: Accepting, Sharing, and Correcting Misinformation , by Rainer Greifeneder, Mariela E. Jaffé, Eryn J. Newman, and Norbert Schwarz (Eds.)". Journalism & Mass Communication Quarterly. 98 (3): 968–971. doi:10.1177/10776990211021795. S2CID   236300196.
  45. ↑ "United States of Distraction F". Kirkus Reviews.
  46. ↑ Guldin, Rachel (1 September 2021). "United States of Distraction: Media Manipulation in Post-Truth America (And What We Can Do About It)". Democratic Communiqué. 30 (1). doi:10.7275/5pm7-z291. ISSN   1555-8967. S2CID   239760949.
  47. ↑ Burns, Karpani (7 May 2020). "'United States of Distraction,' a book review". San Francisco Bay View.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.