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tonyleachsf's review
4.0
Well researched, with believable conclusions about the state of America’s media ecosystem and how it led to surprising results in the 2016 election.
On one hand, it’s encouraging that the authors don’t lay the blame at the feet of technology - the most obvious culprit. On the other, it’s disheartening that our media ecosystem is so broken that we’re unlikely to see much change, at least not soon.
It’s hard to avoid the strong perspective the authors have, which in many cases reads like bias. I worry that even having this whiff of bias may turn people against this book, only when they’re the ones that need to read it the most.
On one hand, it’s encouraging that the authors don’t lay the blame at the feet of technology - the most obvious culprit. On the other, it’s disheartening that our media ecosystem is so broken that we’re unlikely to see much change, at least not soon.
It’s hard to avoid the strong perspective the authors have, which in many cases reads like bias. I worry that even having this whiff of bias may turn people against this book, only when they’re the ones that need to read it the most.
tooshark's review
2.0
This book had a cohesive argument and was well-supported, but it was dense to the point of being unreadable at times. The sentences went on for a dozen lines, often taking up half a page. It took me a long time to read this book and I would only recommend it to someone who enjoys reading (or has to read) dense academic work.
jedwardsusc's review
4.0
This book advances two major arguments. First, fake news is not the recent product of social media or foreign interference. While both were factors in the 2016 election, neither had the kind of outsized influence that they've been portrayed as having. The second, related, argument is that liberal and conservative media consumption has been diverging since the 1980s. While self-indentifying liberal and independent voters tend to follow a variety of news sources and not hold overwhelming trust in any particular source, conservative voters follow a much narrower group of news "propaganda" sources--from Rush Limbaugh in the 1980s to Sean Hannity and Breitbart today--and they tend to place much greater relative trust in these sources--viewing others news sources as part of the deceptive "mainstream media."
The authors argue that it is this systematic divergence between conservative media consumption and everyone else that is responsible for many of our media and political dilemmas. It's a data-rich and nuanced account that clearly articulates the problem without offering up overly easy or optimistic solutions.
The authors argue that it is this systematic divergence between conservative media consumption and everyone else that is responsible for many of our media and political dilemmas. It's a data-rich and nuanced account that clearly articulates the problem without offering up overly easy or optimistic solutions.
sophieckahler's review
4.0
As far as academic books go, this one was actually pretty good. They should definitely make an abridged version though because it's simply too long and detailed.
queenvalaska's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
reflective
medium-paced
4.0
jnlybbert's review against another edition
5.0
This is the best explanation of what’s happening in American politics I’ve read yet. The idea that both sides of the political spectrum are equally polarizing or that right wing media “balances out” the biases of mainstream media is a myth. A balanced political spectrum does not accurately describe the ideological landscape of American politics, but we can get a much better idea of what’s happening by looking at the landscape of political media outlets and how they interact with each other.
The authors of this book have looked at data that shows how people interact with political media outlets and how media outlets interact with each other. It tells a story of how the right wing media ecosystem is distinct and separate from the mainstream. It follows a different set of rules, operating on what the authors call a “propaganda feedback loop” mechanism rather than the “reality check” mechanisms that the mainstream media ecosystem follows.
There is no counterpart to this right wing media network on the left. There are left wing media outlets, but they are bound by the rules and mechanisms of the mainstream.
The result of these dynamics is that consumers of right wing media are becoming ever more radicalized and insular. This serves to explain a number of phenomena we are witnessing on the right—the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the increasing detachment from reality, the cult-like devotion to demagogues.
The book makes some suggestions for what should be done about this problem, but I see it as an important wake up call to recognize how influential our media really is, and that not all media is the same. Both sides are not the same. There is something very pernicious happening in right wing media. We need to be able to recognize it before we can ever address it.
The authors of this book have looked at data that shows how people interact with political media outlets and how media outlets interact with each other. It tells a story of how the right wing media ecosystem is distinct and separate from the mainstream. It follows a different set of rules, operating on what the authors call a “propaganda feedback loop” mechanism rather than the “reality check” mechanisms that the mainstream media ecosystem follows.
There is no counterpart to this right wing media network on the left. There are left wing media outlets, but they are bound by the rules and mechanisms of the mainstream.
The result of these dynamics is that consumers of right wing media are becoming ever more radicalized and insular. This serves to explain a number of phenomena we are witnessing on the right—the proliferation of conspiracy theories, the increasing detachment from reality, the cult-like devotion to demagogues.
The book makes some suggestions for what should be done about this problem, but I see it as an important wake up call to recognize how influential our media really is, and that not all media is the same. Both sides are not the same. There is something very pernicious happening in right wing media. We need to be able to recognize it before we can ever address it.
redbecca's review
5.0
This is the best book I have read so far on the interaction between right wing politics and media. The authors adopt a relatively neutral tone, are scrupulously transparent in describing their methods, and offer insights hard to find elsewhere. The authors admirably avoid hyperbolic narratives about Russian influence, the Alt-right, commercial algorithms and "internet echo chambers" while demonstrating the ways in which all of these factors are currently at play.
squirrelfish's review
4.0
A well-researched book investigating the factors of polarization, misinformation and propaganda that were seen during the 2016 American presidential election. The authors look at intentional misinformation, conspiracy theories, bullshit and the amplification and spread of stories to look for methods and factors. Contrary to some of the common theories they did not show that Facebook specifically or the internet more generally were of significant impact. The voters most likely to be using these services were less likely to be Trump voters, and the types of influence that were attempted is shown to be of minimal impact. The authors use a great analogy 'If $5000 is stolen from a billionaire, it doesn't make it less illegal even if the billionaire might not notice it's loss' - cautioning that these tactics are likely in the future and likely to become more effective over time. The authors convincingly show that the internet echoes trends that are present in television and radio.
Network Propaganda identifies and examines several more powerful trends that impacted the 2016 election using machine learning assisted word maps and other tools with information gathered from Twitter data, traditional polling, close examination of newspaper, television, and other medias. The asymmetric relationship with truth between the left and the right is shown in a variety of contexts. This shows the left exists in a "Reality Check" dynamic that penalizes the spread of misinformation and says 'well, actually..' meaning that even if a story is shared, it will be corrected. The right does not share this habit, and that gives the right what they call a first-mover advantage. The American right-wing media, described as Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and tv evangelicals among others, established a separate media ecosystem that does not have the same penalties and disadvantages for propaganda. They intimately review the ways individual stories would rise from a suspicious source and become propagated into the larger news cycle through reactions to this false story. They examine politifact and it's data, and ways that it is both useful and could be improved. Don't imagine that this book is entirely complimentary about the left - they do show several efforts to duplicate the right's information tactics, they just show that it hasn't been as successful.
The book is mostly research and evidence but it does have a few specific proposals that seem reasonable. An open database containing the ads placed on a platform, with purchaser data available for customers above a certain amount of purchases, would combat 'dark ads' - ads tightly targeted to be less public such as neonazi support. They also enjoin reporters to put more emphasis on truth and accountability over norms of balance and neutrality to overcome the asymmetric way affinity and identity-confirming networks amplifies extreme and uninformed views. This is in part because a diffuse information ecosystem allows a small segment of viewers to become immersed in identity-confirming news where they are not confronted by potentially uncomfortable news stories.
Overall very interesting for the technical discussion of different types of internet misinformation and those who share it, with a lighter discussion of issues brought up in [b:The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|26195941|The Age of Surveillance Capitalism The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|Shoshana Zuboff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1521733914s/26195941.jpg|46170685] but only in the context of how behavioral marketing can endanger democracy as it becomes more effective, as well as the description of more traditional propagandistic methods.
Read via audiobook from the SF Public Library and the Libby app, with references to the free book here https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001/oso-9780190923624
Network Propaganda identifies and examines several more powerful trends that impacted the 2016 election using machine learning assisted word maps and other tools with information gathered from Twitter data, traditional polling, close examination of newspaper, television, and other medias. The asymmetric relationship with truth between the left and the right is shown in a variety of contexts. This shows the left exists in a "Reality Check" dynamic that penalizes the spread of misinformation and says 'well, actually..' meaning that even if a story is shared, it will be corrected. The right does not share this habit, and that gives the right what they call a first-mover advantage. The American right-wing media, described as Rush Limbaugh, Fox News and tv evangelicals among others, established a separate media ecosystem that does not have the same penalties and disadvantages for propaganda. They intimately review the ways individual stories would rise from a suspicious source and become propagated into the larger news cycle through reactions to this false story. They examine politifact and it's data, and ways that it is both useful and could be improved. Don't imagine that this book is entirely complimentary about the left - they do show several efforts to duplicate the right's information tactics, they just show that it hasn't been as successful.
The book is mostly research and evidence but it does have a few specific proposals that seem reasonable. An open database containing the ads placed on a platform, with purchaser data available for customers above a certain amount of purchases, would combat 'dark ads' - ads tightly targeted to be less public such as neonazi support. They also enjoin reporters to put more emphasis on truth and accountability over norms of balance and neutrality to overcome the asymmetric way affinity and identity-confirming networks amplifies extreme and uninformed views. This is in part because a diffuse information ecosystem allows a small segment of viewers to become immersed in identity-confirming news where they are not confronted by potentially uncomfortable news stories.
Overall very interesting for the technical discussion of different types of internet misinformation and those who share it, with a lighter discussion of issues brought up in [b:The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|26195941|The Age of Surveillance Capitalism The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power|Shoshana Zuboff|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1521733914s/26195941.jpg|46170685] but only in the context of how behavioral marketing can endanger democracy as it becomes more effective, as well as the description of more traditional propagandistic methods.
Read via audiobook from the SF Public Library and the Libby app, with references to the free book here https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001/oso-9780190923624