How a decaying legacy magazine is being used to launder right-wing ideas and conspiracy theories.
The Death of Newsweek
The U.S. is losing something as the publication disintegrates—a magazine with guts and heart.
America’s Right-Wing Propaganda Problem Might Be Terminal - Dame Magazine
America’s descent into mass delusion isn’t happenstance. The demise of courageous journalism isn’t a happy accident. Its replacement with engagement-chasing infotainment and propaganda isn’t an error. It’s a global assault on reason and informed consensus, and corporations and authoritarian bullies like Donald Trump are both architects and benefactors. For decades, academics warned anybody who’d listen
The Worst Magazine In America
The Atlantic poses as a magazine of ideas, but its writers get away with terrible arguments. Its ascendance is a sign of the dire state of American intellectual life.
The Rise of the Right-Wing Media Machine
This conservative media machine now rivals—and may well surpass—the power and the influence of the old-line press. It holds sway over much of the national agenda, deciding which ideas and...
The Rise of the Right-Wing Media Machine
This conservative media machine now rivals—and may well surpass—the power and the influence of the old-line press. It holds sway over much of the national agenda, deciding which ideas and...
The Voice of the ‘Intellectual Dark Web’
Claire Lehmann’s online magazine, Quillette, prides itself on publishing “dangerous” ideas other outlets won’t touch. How far is it willing to go?
The Washington Post is in fascist-guided free fall
Former Murdoch employees have taken over. Now corruption and scandal abound.
Brett Scott (@brettscott)
Marshall McLuhan is famous for his observation that the form of a communication technology can shape our mind and society The age of the printed book, for example, carried with it a particular way of being. Regardless of the differing content of different books, all books required a particular mindset in which a thread is followed from the beginning to the end through an arc I feel the age of social media is like the age of a ripped up book, as if we were surrounded by torn shards and shreds of paper floating like confetti around us. We grab for them, hoping for some tiny insight, but not having any way of knowing where it fits in the overarching narrative This note is one such shard. You can toss it away now
Media Won’t Stop Psychologizing Long Covid
Media outlets that trumpet their journalistic integrity have used their prestige to launder an unproven, anti-science conspiracy theory about Long Covid.
Why ‘Flooding the Zone’ Works for Trump - Dame Magazine
Trump’s allies openly described a strategy to overwhelm the press with simultaneous crises. The structure of modern journalism makes it work
Dropshipping journalism
<p>No one working at <i>Newsweek</i> can tell me why it still exists</p>
Leftism | The Paper Pilot
The Paper Pilot's digital garden of thoughts on philosophy, politics, and sociology
Data Feminism for AI
Attacks on women and trans people are not happening in a vacuum. Communications scholars W. Lance Bennett and Marianne Kneuer recently argued that we are witnessing the intensification of "illiberal public spheres" around the world (Bennett and Kneuer, 2023). These are characterized by a set of anti-democratic communications tactics that include the denigration and exclusion of minoritized people, targeted attacks on the press and political institutions, and transgression of norms of civil discourse. Such tactics are enabled and amplified by the social media platforms owned by Big Tech, whose business model elevates attention above all other metrics, such that they profit richly off extremism, threats, spectacle, and lies. The success of this corporate partnership with right-wing extremism is evident in the proliferation of book bans (Magnusson, 2024), the demonization of DEI and critical race theory (Crenshaw, 2022), and mob tactics to doxx, intimidate, misrepresent, and otherwise silence people that study misinformation, speak out against racial and gender violence, or rule against insurrectionists (Edmonds, 2024). At the same time, we have seen the continued work of feminists, including Latin American, Indigenous, and abolitionist feminists in the US and globally, doing the work of imagining alternate worlds (Cullors, 2021; Davis, 2022; Ricaurte, 2019; Simpson, 2017). This paper represents our own first attempt to imagine a more equitable, sustainable, feminist world for AI research.
Fake news spreads like an epidemic. Here’s how to stop it.
Researchers study fake news the same way they study the spread of disease. When misinformation “goes viral”, it is not just a metaphor. It is what’s actually happening. via @straits_times str.sg/viz-misinformation
Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters
Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism
Revealed: How Substack makes money from hosting Nazi newsletters
Exclusive: Site takes a cut of subscriptions to content that promotes far-right ideology, white supremacy and antisemitism