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Misinformation, Disinformation & Fake News

This guide will help you understand misinformation using useful checklists, fact-checking tools, library resources, and other sources.

Featured Titles

Disinformation: The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Post-Truth Era

Does the idea of a world in which facts mean nothing cause anxiety? Fear? Maybe even paranoia? Disinformation: The Nature of Facts and Lies in the Post-Truth Era cannot cure all the ills of a post-truth world, but by demonstrating how the emergence of digital technology into everyday life has knitted together a number of seemingly loosely related forces-historical, psychological, economic, and culture-to create the post-truth culture, Disinformation will help you better understand how we got to where we now are, see how we can move beyond a culture in which facts are too easily dismissed, and develop a few highly practical skills for separating truth from lies.

Active Measures: The Secret History of Disinformation and Political Warfare

This revelatory and dramatic history of disinformation traces the rise of secret organized deception operations from the interwar period to contemporary internet troll farms.

Fake News and Alternative Facts: Information Literacy in a Post Truth Era

Talk of so-called fake news, what it is and what it isn't, is front and center across the media landscape, with new calls for the public to acquire appropriate research and evaluation skills and become more information savvy. But none of this is new for librarians and information professionals, particularly for those who teach information literacy. Cooke, a Library Journal Mover & Shaker, believes that the current situation represents a golden opportunity for librarians to impart these important skills to patrons, regardless of their age or experience. In this Special Report, she demonstrates how. Readers will learn more about the rise of fake news, particularly those information behaviors that have perpetuated its spread; discover techniques to identify fake news, especially online; and explore methods to help library patrons of all ages think critically about information, teaching them ways to separate fact from fiction.

Campus Misinformation

Popular but highly misleading narratives about the state of free speech and intellectual diversity on college campuses impede constructive deliberation about higher education while promoting suspect ideas about First Amendment freedoms and democratic participation. In 'Campus Misinformation', Bradford Vivian shows how misinformation about colleges and universities has proliferated in recent years, with potentially dangerous results.

Fake News: Understanding Media and Misinfromation in the Digital Age

New perspectives on the misinformation ecosystem that is the production and circulation of fake news. What is fake news? This book examines the real fake news: the constant flow of purposefully crafted, sensational, emotionally charged, misleading or totally fabricated information that mimics the form of mainstream news. Rather than viewing fake news through a single lens, the book maps the various kinds of misinformation through several different disciplinary perspectives, taking into account the overlapping contexts of politics, technology, and journalism. Contributors consider possible solutions to the complex problem of fake news - ways to mitigate its spread, to teach students to find factually accurate information, and to go beyond fact-checking.

Contact Your Librarian

For anyone looking for more information and resources on Misinformation/Disinformation in their subject area, contact your subject librarian, who can be found on the library Subject Librarian Page 

How to Spot Fake News

Infographic titled "How to Spot Fake News"

Text on this page created by Queen's University Library is licensed under a CC BY-NC 4.0 license.