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A review by readlvlgreen
The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread by Cailin O'Connor, James Owen Weatherall
informative
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
The Misinformation Age: How False Beliefs Spread is an educational text aimed towards a general media-dealing audience that explains the different methods that happens when misinformation becomes widespread in a society. This book reads like an easier version of a textbook while being an enjoyable read full of real world events. The purpose of this book is to teach about how false beliefs about misinformation can become permanent ideas in society and how to identify these things. There is a heavy focus on people and the different reasons why people spread false beliefs. This book does not condemn misinformation but instead wants to teach how to look out for it, which is very important for today's world that deals with information all the time.
The book consist of five parts, each is formatted by giving real world examples and explaining the different concepts that are happening in these examples. Each real world example is well researched and is the book's strongest point. The real world examples are what makes the book's concepts so easy to understand while also being an interesting to read. After reading this book, I felt that misinformation is a more human concept than I have before. We all have false beliefs and the spread of that IS misinformation whether we mean it or not. And it is so easy to look at misinformation and write it off but this book reminds you to find the innermost workings that is happening when misinformation spreads. In the end, The Misinformation Age reminds it's readers to look out into the world and see how spread of information is a complex process which you, a person in a society, is a part of everyday.
I fully recommend this book to anyone who is on the internet or consumes media, so I recommend this book to everyone. Even if you already have an idea about know how misinformation spreads, this book goes above by giving real world examples and braking each down to further explain the difference methods at play when it comes to misinformation. When you come across misinformation, there are so many personal reasons why someone would be willing to spread that. This book gives focus to the "people" side of misinformation and how society does play a role when it comes to misinformation. Since a lot of information is delivered through the internet, it is easy to forget that there is always a person behind that information who is spreading it. This book does a fantastic job of reminding you of that. The Misinformation Age is around five chapters of text (around 187 pages) and uses nontechnical vocabulary so it is a book that can be read in a few days or even one sitting.
The book consist of five parts, each is formatted by giving real world examples and explaining the different concepts that are happening in these examples. Each real world example is well researched and is the book's strongest point. The real world examples are what makes the book's concepts so easy to understand while also being an interesting to read. After reading this book, I felt that misinformation is a more human concept than I have before. We all have false beliefs and the spread of that IS misinformation whether we mean it or not. And it is so easy to look at misinformation and write it off but this book reminds you to find the innermost workings that is happening when misinformation spreads. In the end, The Misinformation Age reminds it's readers to look out into the world and see how spread of information is a complex process which you, a person in a society, is a part of everyday.
I fully recommend this book to anyone who is on the internet or consumes media, so I recommend this book to everyone. Even if you already have an idea about know how misinformation spreads, this book goes above by giving real world examples and braking each down to further explain the difference methods at play when it comes to misinformation. When you come across misinformation, there are so many personal reasons why someone would be willing to spread that. This book gives focus to the "people" side of misinformation and how society does play a role when it comes to misinformation. Since a lot of information is delivered through the internet, it is easy to forget that there is always a person behind that information who is spreading it. This book does a fantastic job of reminding you of that. The Misinformation Age is around five chapters of text (around 187 pages) and uses nontechnical vocabulary so it is a book that can be read in a few days or even one sitting.