Decoding Disinformation


Book Description

""Decoding Disinformation"" tackles the pressing issue of digital misinformation in our modern world. This comprehensive guide explores the psychology behind fake news, the mechanics of digital propaganda, and essential fact-checking tools. The book argues that critical thinking and media literacy are crucial for navigating today's information-saturated landscape, where social media algorithms and cognitive biases can amplify false narratives. Readers will gain insights into the evolution of misinformation, from pre-internet rumors to sophisticated digital manipulation techniques. The book highlights how conspiracy theories spread and why they appeal to certain individuals, shedding light on the complex interplay between human psychology and technology. It also provides practical strategies for identifying and debunking false claims, empowering readers to become more resilient to manipulation. Progressing through chapters on belief psychology, social media dynamics, and fact-checking techniques, ""Decoding Disinformation"" offers a multifaceted view of the issue. By combining academic research with real-world examples and expert interviews, the book presents a balanced, solution-oriented approach to combating misinformation, making it an invaluable resource for anyone seeking to navigate the digital information landscape more effectively.




Fake President


Book Description

"Read Fake President….This book can help us replace Trump with truth." —Gloria Steinem "Terrific new book. Fake President informs as it entertains." --Laurence Tribe​ An incisive, witty roadmap into the disinformation and betrayals of President Trump—just in time for the impeachment hearings and the 2020 election. Donald Trump was lawfully selected as the US president...but is still a "fake" president because he simply lacks the integrity, intelligence, and stability to perform the duties of the office as the Constitution intended. "If you spend so much time golfing, tweeting, and seething," write Green and Nader, "it's understandable that a POTUS doesn't get around to appointing one-third of all agency inspector generals...Might as well expect a surgeon to be an opera singer." As the House Impeachment Inquiry unfolds based on a similar premise, Fake President decodes many of his worst scandals and "twistifications" (a Jefferson coinage). And it’s bound to get even worse as the House gets closer to actual Articles of Impeachment and the Fall election approaches. Since it's nearly impossible to keep track of Trump's "daily lava of lies," two of America’s foremost public advocates do that work for you. This is your one-stop shop that explains what the Lyin' King means to our democracy. It’s a cheeky, deadly rebuke of Trump’s incorrigible "fakery"...from his dishonesty about foreign policy to blatant ignorance about the environment to his messianic narcissism. Fake President is an essential guide to help you understand the two biggest news stories of the coming year—impeachment and the 2020 presidential election.




How to Lose the Information War


Book Description

Since the start of the Trump era, the United States and the Western world has finally begun to wake up to the threat of online warfare and the attacks from Russia, who flood social media with disinformation, and circulate false and misleading information to fuel fake narratives and make the case for illegal warfare. The question no one seems to be able to answer is: what can the West do about it? Central and Eastern European states, including Ukraine and Poland, however, have been aware of the threat for years. Nina Jankowicz has advised these governments on the front lines of the information war. The lessons she learnt from that fight, and from her attempts to get US congress to act, make for essential reading. How to Lose the Information War takes the reader on a journey through five Western governments' responses to Russian information warfare tactics - all of which have failed. She journeys into the campaigns the Russian operatives run, and shows how we can better understand the motivations behind these attacks and how to beat them. Above all, this book shows what is at stake: the future of civil discourse and democracy, and the value of truth itself.




Decoding the Enochian Secrets


Book Description

The ultimate source text of Enochian Magic never before available in book form • Contains the actual and complete Tables of Enoch given to Dr. John Dee by the Angels • Explains the difference between Dee’s Tables of Enoch and the apocryphal Book of Enoch • Includes directions for powerful magic rituals and meditations using these tables • Presents a reconstruction of the possible 49th missing Table of Enoch Originally considered a vital part of inspirational literature used by the early church, the Book of Enoch never made it into the cannon or accepted books of the Old Testament because of its strange and mysterious content about Enoch’s experiences in the higher realms, or heavens. The real Book of Enoch, which is a set of almost 100 mystical tables, was given again to humankind in the 1580s, when it was conveyed directly by angels to Dr. John Dee, a 16th-century mathematician, scientist, occultist, and the astrologer of Queen Elizabeth I. Called “the most important book ever given to man by God” by Dee’s angelic messengers, the Book (or Tables) of Enoch is said to hold all the secrets of heaven and earth and the physical and spiritual realms. Decoding the Enochian Secrets reproduces for the first time ever the exact and complete copy of these tables, which are housed in the British Library. The tables are written in the handwriting of Dr. Dee and Edward Kelly, Dee’s assistant and scryer. The tables also include the phonetic pronunciations, written by Dee in the margins, of all the magical Enochian Calls. Covering the history of this Book or Tables of Enoch, John DeSalvo explains the difference between these tables and the apocryphal Book of Enoch and examines how later magicians such as Aleister Crowley used them. Including Enochian Magic Meditations and rituals, Decoding the Enochian Secrets presents the source text to the most powerful form of magic known to mankind.







Prosecution for Treason


Book Description

The Constitution defines treason as levying war against the United States, by persons who hold allegiance to the US, in other words all Americans. This author argues that violence committed against citizens by anyone who wages weather warfare (she assumes Hurricane Katrina is an example) or who sets epidemics in motion (by laboratory-created diseases such as AIDS) should be prosecuted for the crime of treason. As for the violent MK-Ultra techniques, to which thousands of children were subjected, and which Congress revealed in 1975, how is it that all the perpetrators escaped punishment? They would be properly designated not as Dr Strangelove's but as traitors. The law is clear on this.




Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation


Book Description

With recent headlines around fake news from world leaders and around presidential elections, Twitter and other social media platforms being pressured to detect and label misinformation posted on their platforms, as well as misinformation around COVID-19 and its vaccine, the world has seen an increase in protests, policy changes, and even chaos surrounding this information. This spread of misinformation, when left unchecked, can turn fiction into fact and result in a mass misconception of the truth that shapes opinions, creates false narratives, and impacts multiple facets of society in potentially detrimental ways, indicating a need for the latest research on how the devastating impacts of this trend, how to discern facts from misinformation, as well as more information on technological advancements in fake news detection The Research Anthology on Fake News, Political Warfare, and Combatting the Spread of Misinformation is a compilation of the most comprehensive, previously published, and highly cited research from prestigious institutions including Columbia University and Stanford University, USA, which focuses on understanding fake news, how it spreads, its negative effects, and current solutions being investigated. While highlighting topics such as fake news, trending conspiracy theories, media distrust, political warfare, and detection methods, this book is ideally intended for practitioners, stakeholders, researchers, academicians, and students interested in the continuing surge of fake news and its, at times, dangerous results.




Phraseology in English Academic Writing


Book Description

This study examines the use of one category of prefabricated language (restricted lexical collocations) in native and non-native academic English in the social sciences, in an attempt to throw light on a neglected aspect of learner competence. It first surveys the existing theoretical viewpoints on word combinations and then reviews experimental research into the psycholinguistic processing of prefabricated language, which suggest that the role of conventional expressions is to facilitate fluent production and rapid comprehension. A computer-based corpus of native academic writing is analysed to discover to what extent and how such collocations are used in formal written English. Conventionality of style, it is suggested, aids precision of expression, clearly a quality highly valued in academic argument. A corpus of non-native writing is then subjected to a similar analysis. While the collocational errors learners make do not on the whole seriously destroy intelligibility, they can lead to a lack of precision and obscure the clarity of expression required in academic communication. Pedagogical implications are then considered, and it is seen that for the most part published teaching materials have failed to recognize the nature of collocations in general and offer little help. The final part of the study examines the treatment of restricted collocations in both general and phraseological dictionaries for learners. These are evaluated on their selection and presentation of collocations shown by the preceding research to be problematic for advanced learners. The conclusion suggests that, for such learners, who are mostly studying the language independently, good reference works are needed in the form of specialist collocational dictionaries. The results of this research help to establish principles for the design of such dictionaries.




Podcast Journalism


Book Description

Podcasting’s stratospheric rise has inspired a new breed of audio reporting. Offering immersive storytelling for a binge-listening audience as well as reaching previously underserved communities, podcasts have become journalism’s most rapidly growing digital genre, buoying a beleaguered news industry. Yet many concerns have been raised about this new medium, such as the potential for disinformation, the influence of sponsors on content, the dominance of a few publishers and platforms, and at-times questionable adherence to journalistic principles. David O. Dowling critically examines how podcasting and its evolving conventions are transforming reporting—and even reshaping journalism’s core functions and identity. He considers podcast reporting’s most influential achievements as well as its most consequential ethical and journalistic shortcomings, emphasizing the reciprocal influences between podcasting and traditional and digital journalism. Podcasting, both as a medium and a business, has benefited from the blurring of boundaries separating news from entertainment, editorial from advertising, and neutrality from subjectivity. The same qualities and forces that have allowed podcasting to bypass the limitations of traditional categories, expand the space of social and political discourse, and provide openings for marginalized voices have also permitted corporations to extend their reach and far-right firebrands to increase their influence. Equally attentive to the medium’s strengths and flaws, this is a vital book for all readers interested in how podcasting has changed journalism.




Media Narratives and the COVID-19 Pandemic


Book Description

This volume investigates mediated lives and media narratives during the Covid-19 pandemic, with Asia as a focus point. It shows how the pandemic has created an unprecedented situation in this globalized world marked by many disruptions in the social, economic, political, and cultural lives of individuals and communities— creating a ‘new normal’. It explores the different media vocabularies of fear, panic, social distancing, and contagion from across Asian nations. It focuses on the role media played as most nations faced lockdowns and unique challenges during the crisis. From healthcare workers to sex workers, from racism to nationalism, from the plight of migrant workers in news reporting to state propaganda, this book brings critical questions confronting media professionals into focus. The volume is of critical interest to scholars and researchers of media and communication studies, politics, especially political communication, social and public policy, and Asian studies.