Whitney Phillips (author)

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Whitney Phillips is an American media studies scholar and author. She studies online misinformation. [1]

Contents

She is assistant professor in the Department of Communication and Rhetorical Studies at Syracuse University. [2]

Phillips received a BA in philosophy from Humboldt State University in 2004, a MFA in creative writing from Emerson College in 2007, and a PhD in English from the University of Oregon. [2]

Books

Related Research Articles

Flaming, also known as roasting, is the act of posting insults, often including profanity or other offensive language, on the internet. This term should not be confused with the term trolling, which is the act of someone going online, or in person, and causing discord. Flaming emerged from the anonymity that Internet forums provide cover for users to act more aggressively. Anonymity can lead to disinhibition, which results in the swearing, offensive, and hostile language characteristic of flaming. Lack of social cues, less accountability of face-to-face communications, textual mediation and deindividualization are also likely factors. Deliberate flaming is carried out by individuals known as flamers, which are specifically motivated to incite flaming. These users specialize in flaming and target specific aspects of a controversial conversation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Troll (slang)</span> Person who sows discord online

In slang, a troll is a person who posts or makes inflammatory, insincere, digressive, extraneous, or off-topic messages online, or in real life, with the intent of provoking others into displaying emotional responses, or manipulating others' perception, thus acting as a bully or a provocateur. The behavior is typically for the troll's amusement, or to achieve a specific result such as disrupting a rival's online activities or purposefully causing confusion or harm to other people.

Disinformation is false information deliberately spread to deceive people. It is sometimes confused with misinformation, which is false information but is not deliberate. Disinformation can be presented in the form of fake news.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet culture</span> Culture that has emerged from the use of computer networks

Internet culture is a quasi-underground cyberculture developed and maintained among frequent and active users of the Internet who primarily communicate with one another online as members of online communities; that is, a culture whose influence is "mediated by computer screens" and Information Communication Technology, specifically the Internet.

Fact-checking is the process of verifying the factual accuracy of questioned reporting and statements. Fact-checking can be conducted before or after the text or content is published or otherwise disseminated. Internal fact-checking is such checking done in-house by the publisher to prevent inaccurate content from being published; when the text is analyzed by a third party, the process is called external fact-checking.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet meme</span> Concept that spreads from person to person via the Internet

An Internet meme, commonly known simply as a meme, is a cultural item that is spread via the Internet, often through social media platforms. Inspired by the concept of memes proposed by Richard Dawkins in 1972, Internet memes can take various forms, such as images, videos, GIFs, and various other viral sensations. Characteristics of memes include their susceptibility to parody, their use of intertextuality, their propagation in a viral pattern, and their evolution over time.

Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It differs from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive. Rumors are information not attributed to any particular source, and so are unreliable and often unverified, but can turn out to be either true or false. Even if later retracted, misinformation can continue to influence actions and memory. People may be more prone to believe misinformation because they are emotionally connected to what they are listening to or are reading. The role of social media has made information readily available to society at anytime, and it connects vast groups of people along with their information at one time. Advances in technology has impacted the way people communicate information and the way misinformation is spread. Misinformation has impacts on societies' ability to receive information which then influences our communities, politics, and medical field.

Mediatization is a process whereby the mass media influence other sectors of society, including politics, business, culture, entertainment, sport, religion, or education. Mediatization is often understood as a process of change or a trend, similar to globalization and modernization, where the mass media are integrated to an increasing degree into other sectors of the society. Political actors, opinion makers, business organizations, civil society organizations, and others have to adapt their way of communication to a form that suits the needs and preferences of the mass media – the so-called media logic. Any person or organization who want to spread their messages to a larger audience have to adapt their messages and communication style to make it attractive for the mass media.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Echo chamber (media)</span> Situation that reinforces beliefs by repetition inside a closed system

In news media and social media, an echo chamber is an environment or ecosystem in which participants encounter beliefs that amplify or reinforce their preexisting beliefs by communication and repetition inside a closed system and insulated from rebuttal. An echo chamber circulates existing views without encountering opposing views, potentially resulting in confirmation bias. Echo chambers may increase social and political polarization and extremism. On social media, it is thought that echo chambers limit exposure to diverse perspectives, and favor and reinforce presupposed narratives and ideologies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joseph M. Reagle Jr.</span> American academic and author

Joseph Michael Reagle Jr. is an American academic and author focused on digital technology and culture, including Wikipedia, online comments, geek feminism, and life hacking. He is Associate Professor of Communication Studies at Northeastern University. He was an early member of the World Wide Web Consortium, based at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and in 1998 and 2010 he was a fellow at Harvard University's Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society.

Andrew Chadwick is a British political communication researcher. His work focuses on the fields of political communication, including mobilisation, news and journalism, political engagement, and deception and misinformation. He is Professor of Political Communication at Loughborough University, where he is also director of the Online Civic Culture Centre (O3C). His latest book The Hybrid Media System: Politics and Power was released in 2013 and in a second edition in 2017.

State-sponsored Internet propaganda is Internet manipulation and propaganda that is sponsored by a state.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fake news</span> False or misleading information presented as news

Fake news is false or misleading information presented as news. Fake news often has the aim of damaging the reputation of a person or entity, or making money through advertising revenue. Although false news has always been spread throughout history, the term "fake news" was first used in the 1890s when sensational reports in newspapers were common. Nevertheless, the term does not have a fixed definition and has been applied broadly to any type of false information. It's also been used by high-profile people to apply to any news unfavourable to them. Further, disinformation involves spreading false information with harmful intent and is sometimes generated and propagated by hostile foreign actors, particularly during elections. In some definitions, fake news includes satirical articles misinterpreted as genuine, and articles that employ sensationalist or clickbait headlines that are not supported in the text. Because of this diversity of types of false news, researchers are beginning to favour information disorder as a more neutral and informative term.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ryan M. Milner</span>

Ryan M. Milner is a writer and professor in the communications department of the College of Charleston in South Carolina. He teaches several courses on modern media technology and digital communications. His primary field of study is focused on the effects of the internet on society and how people respond differently to emerging technologies.

An infodemic is a rapid and far-reaching spread of both accurate and inaccurate information about certain issues. The word is a portmanteau of "information" and "epidemic" and is used as a metaphor to describe how misinformation and disinformation can spread like a virus from person to person and affect people like a disease. This term, originally coined in 2003 by David Rothkopf, rose to prominence in 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Joan Donovan is an American social scientist researcher and lecturer at Harvard Kennedy School at Harvard University, an affiliate at Data and Society, and is research director of the Technology and Social Change Research Project at the Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics and Public Policy.

Bad News is a free-to-play online browser game in which players take the perspective of a fake news tycoon. It was released on February 19, 2018. The game is classified as a serious game and a newsgame aimed at improving media literacy and social impact. The game was produced by the Dutch media platform "DROG" in collaboration with University of Cambridge scientists. The game has been described by the media as a "fake news vaccine".

Disinformation attacks involve the intentional dissemination of false information, with an end goal of misleading, confusing, or manipulating an audience. False information that is not intentionally deceptive is referred to as misinformation, although that has also been used as a catch-all term. Disinformation attacks may be executed by political, economic or individual actors to influence state or non-state entities and domestic or foreign populations. These attacks are commonly employed to reshape attitudes and beliefs, drive a particular agenda, or elicit certain actions from a target audience. Tactics include the presentation of incorrect or misleading information, the creation of uncertainty, and the undermining of both correct information and the credibility of information sources.

Algorithmic radicalization is the concept that algorithms on popular social media sites such as YouTube and Facebook drive users toward progressively more extreme content over time, leading to them developing radicalized extremist political views. Algorithms record user interactions, from likes/dislikes to amount of time spent on posts, to generate endless media aimed to keep users engaged. Through echo chamber channels, the consumer is driven to be more polarized through preferences in media and self-confirmation.

Limor Shifman is a professor of communication at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and is the Vice Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences. Her work has been in researching and developing an area of study surrounding Internet memes, a subarea of digital culture and digital media research. Since the late 2000s she has been an active contributor to the research area of memetics, a more broad area of research interested in cultural evolution of ideas. She is married to neurogeneticist Sagiv Shifman.

References

  1. Falk, Dan (April 8, 2022). "Interview: Whitney Phillips on Making Sense of Misinformation". Undark Magazine .
  2. 1 2 "Whitney Phillips". Syracuse University News. June 5, 2020.
  3. Summit-Gil, Britney (2016). "This is why we can't have nice things: Mapping the relationship between online trolling and mainstream culture". New Media & Society. 18 (11): 2800–2802. doi:10.1177/1461444816661710. S2CID   35303709.
  4. Oh, Dayei (July 3, 2019). "The ambivalent Internet: mischief, oddity, and antagonism online". Information, Communication & Society. 22 (8): 1189–1191. doi:10.1080/1369118X.2019.1606267. S2CID   151267282 via Taylor and Francis+NEJM.
  5. Driessen, Simone (June 23, 2019). "Book Review: The Ambivalent Internet. Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online". Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. 25 (3): 567–568. doi: 10.1177/1354856519854203 . S2CID   198764951.
  6. Deller, Rose (September 7, 2017). "Book Review: The Ambivalent Internet: Mischief, Oddity, and Antagonism Online by Whitney Phillips and Ryan M. Milner". LSE Review of Books. London School of Economics and Political Science.
  7. https://www.diva-portal.org/smash/get/diva2:1397299/FULLTEXT01.pdf
  8. Heath, Mary (2021). "Book Review: You Are Here: A Field Guide for Navigating Polarized Speech, Conspiracy Theories, and Our Polluted Media Landscape". New Media & Society. 23 (6): 1721–1723. doi:10.1177/1461444821999813. S2CID   233829319.
  9. White, Andrew (August 18, 2022). "Review essay: fake news, and online misinformation and disinformation". Information, Communication & Society. 25 (11): 1669–1675. doi: 10.1080/1369118X.2021.2000005 . S2CID   244500560.
  10. Patyk, Lynn Ellen (July 21, 2021). "We Are Where? Lost in the Disinformation Jungle". Los Angeles Review of Books .