Book Chapters by Gabriele Cosentino
The Palgrave Handbook of Contemporary Geopolitics , 2024
The chapter offers an overview of the debate on the origins of the Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, with... more The chapter offers an overview of the debate on the origins of the Covid-19 in Wuhan, China, with a special emphasis on its political and geopolitical implications. The debate currently consists of two main hypotheses, the zoonotic natural origin and the lab accident pathway, none of which has found conclusive evidence. Through an account of the various stages underwent by the debate over the past 4 years, the chapter sheds light on the contextual political elements – both in the United States and in China – that have influenced the scientific and public discussion on the origin of the pandemic. The chapter also discusses efforts of scientists and public health officials in the United States to sideline the lab accident hypothesis and to influence the media to amplify the natural origin. Such efforts are presented as related to an attempt to obfuscate the significant US funding received by a research facility in Wuhan, which is at the center of the lab accident hypothesis. Lastly, the chapter also discusses the alleged involvement of both Chinese and American military and security apparatuses in coronavirus research and anticipates that a further discussion of this particular aspect of the debate might lead to a worsening in the US-China relation.
Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order , 2020
This chapter investigates the disruptive impact of social media in politically volatile contexts ... more This chapter investigates the disruptive impact of social media in politically volatile contexts in the Global South. The controversial role of Facebook in facilitating hate speech and disinformation that led to widespread violence against the Rohingya Muslim minority in Myanmar will be discussed. The chapter will also analyze the role of Facebook subsidiary WhatsApp in allowing the circulation of disinformation during the 2018 general elections in Brazil, won by controversial far-right politician Jair Bolsonaro. The chapter discusses the problematic role of social media platforms as arbiters of global political speech, as their affordances and incentives tend to favor sensational and inflammatory content. The problem is compounded by the inability of State institutions, particularly in countries with a weak democratic tradition, to exert control and enforce oversight on the content of social media platforms.
The Infodemic. Disinformation, Geopolitic and the Covid-19 Pandemic. Bloomsbury Academic., 2023
What caused the Covid-19 pandemic, a natural spillover event or a incident in a Wuhan lab working... more What caused the Covid-19 pandemic, a natural spillover event or a incident in a Wuhan lab working on coronavirus? Were the mitigation measures imposed by many governments - such as lockdowns and mask-wearing mandates - based on scientific evidence, or rather aimed at curtailing civil liberties and disrupting economic activities, under the secret maneuvering of a global cabal of politicians and financiers? And were Covid-19 vaccines effective in curbing the spread of the disease, or were they just a profitable scheme by big pharmaceutical companies?
These questions and speculations, some legitimate, some dubious, have been swirling around the globe through social media, alternative information outlets, instant messaging apps, and mainstream media since the beginning of the pandemic, feeding the 'infodemic' - an overwhelming surge of information, misinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories which continue to linger in public and private discourse.
With an original take on concepts and theories drawn from post-truth and disinformation studies, the book analyses the 'infodemic' through a series of global case studies. Framing the infodemic as a complex, multi-layered phenomenon with vast geopolitical implications, Gabriele Cosentino reveals the global competition for control in twenty-first century geopolitics between Western liberal democracies and non-Western autocracies, and above all between the United States and China.
The Infodemic. Disinformation, Geopolitics and the Covid-19 Pandemic, 2023
In this chapter I discuss the two main theories about the origin of Covid-19: zoonotic spillover... more In this chapter I discuss the two main theories about the origin of Covid-19: zoonotic spillover and laboratory accident.
During the first part of 2020, there seemed to be a pretty solid scientific consensus that the virus had a natural origin. Such apparent agreement among scientists was, however, never fully solidified into a definitive theory based on dispositive evidence, as doubts remained on how the virus ‘spillover’ actually happened, and the intermediary transmitting agent required for the spillover remained elusive.
After the second half of 2020, as evidence for this hypothesis couldn’t
be found, the laboratory accident hypothesis, initially dismissed as a
conspiracy theory, started to gain more traction in scientific circles, and
the activities of various Wuhan research centres began to be more closely
scrutinized.
As more scientists around the world started to probe into
the microbiology of the virus and into early epidemiological trends,
a growing dissenting opinion emerged, primarily via social media,
some media coverage by scientific journalists as well as in scientific
literature, arguing that a laboratory accident should not be ruled out.
The laboratory accident narrative has often overlapped in
public discussions, especially on social media, with rumours and
conspiracy theories about the virus as a bioweapon, especially at
the beginning of the pandemic, when information about the new
disease was very scarce and most of it was filtering through the tightly
controlled Chinese information environment.
At the beginning there was a lot of confusion between the two versions even in mainstream journalism, which created the association between engineered virus and bioweapon.
Because of the post-truth context outlined in the introductory
chapter, and of the high political and geopolitical stakes involved,
all hypotheses on the origin of Covid-19 were from the start mired
in misinformation, disinformation and political polarization.
This chapter also focuses on the tension between misinformation,
especially conspiracy theories, and fact-checking. More specifically,
I observe how the concept of conspiracy theory was used both
legitimately, to protect the scientific discourse from misinformation
and disinformation, and illegitimately, especially as an ‘ad hominem’
attack by institutional actors to rigidly frame the conversation on the
origin of Covid-19 as a natural event, and to disqualify all dissenting
voices.
Social Media and The Post-Truth World Order, 2020
This chapter presents a case study based on the analysis of a disinformation campaign carried by ... more This chapter presents a case study based on the analysis of a disinformation campaign carried by the Syrian regime and its ally Russia against the search-and-rescue organization globally known as the White Helmets, who operate since 2014 in Syria's rebel-held areas. This case study on the Syrian Civil War shows how rumors, conspiracy theories and other post-truth narratives in support of the Assad regime were given amplification by Russian media and via social media by a group of selfstyled independent journalists and social media influencers, as well as by political bots and sock-puppet accounts. Such manipulative and propagandistic efforts found a receptive audience in Western countries, where social media users actively shared or co-created misleading or fictional narratives in a cultural and political context characterized by public opinion radicalization and polarization.
Social Media and The Post-Truth World Order, 2020
This chapter recounts, analyzes and theoretically frames the impact of influence operations carri... more This chapter recounts, analyzes and theoretically frames the impact of influence operations carried by Russian trolls coordinated by the Internet Research Agency (IRA) to covertly influence the 2016 presidential elections in the United States. The chapter locates the IRA development in the context of domestic Russian politics and its later evolution as an agent of information warfare in the conflict in Ukraine. The chapter also discusses the theme of political polarization within American society, which was exploited and exacerbated by a coordinated strategy of political interference directed by the Kremlin aimed at sowing distrust and confusions among voters.
Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order (Chapter 3), 2020
This chapter discusses the circulation of conspiracy theories evolving from concoctions of Intern... more This chapter discusses the circulation of conspiracy theories evolving from concoctions of Internet subcultures to global topics of public conversation and political mobilization. The examples provided are those of the Pizzagate and QAnon conspiracy theories, which embody the anti-establishment ethos, the paranoid disposition and the ironic attitude of far-right on-line communities. The chapter analyzes the spreading of a set of myths, symbols and codes created by the 4chan and 8chan users within a global network of White ethnonationalists. The far-right anti-immigration conspiracy theory 'The Great Replacement' is discussed to explore the interlocking themes of White identity politics, trolling and the 'weaponization' of Internet entertainment.
Social Media and the Post-Truth World Order - Palgrave Macmillan, 2020
This book discusses post-truth not merely as a Western issue, but as a problematic political and ... more This book discusses post-truth not merely as a Western issue, but as a problematic political and cultural condition with global ramifications. By locating the roots of the phenomenon in the trust crisis suffered by liberal democracy and its institutions, the book argues that post-truth serves as a space for ideological conflicts and geopolitical power struggles that are reshaping the world order.
The era of post-truth politics is thus here to stay, and its reach is increasingly global: Russian trolls organizing events on social media attended by thousands of unaware American citizens; European social media users spreading fictional political narratives in support of the Syrian regime; Facebook offering a platform for a harassment campaign by Buddhist ultranationalists in Myanmar that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims.
These are just some of the examples that demonstrate the dangerous effects of the Internet-driven global diffusion of disinformation and misinformation. Grounded on a theoretical framework yet written in an engaging and accessible way, this timely book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, policymakers and citizens concerned with the impact of social media on politics.
Imprimatur Editore, 2017
Questo breve saggio si propone di investigare il sistema di cause economiche, meccanismi cultural... more Questo breve saggio si propone di investigare il sistema di cause economiche, meccanismi culturali e strumenti tecnologici che sottendono all’emergere dell’era della post-verità, tracciando una mappa per orientarsi fra i moderni populismi e la complessa rete di relazioni che li lega al sistema dei media. In questo periodo di cambiamenti di portata epocale sembra infatti aver preso vita un inedito rapporto fra media e politica, causato dalla crisi di legittimità del giornalismo e dei partiti tradizionali, e in parallelo dall’imporsi di una sfera di informazione e dibattito centrata sui social media, che ha portato alla divisione dell’opinione pubblica in fronti ideologici chiusi e bellicosi e alla diffusione di un’informazione sensazionalista, faziosa e spesso palesemente falsa.
Papers by Gabriele Cosentino
Journal of African Media Studies, 2021
The article discusses the freedom of expression crisis that characterized the authoritarian respo... more The article discusses the freedom of expression crisis that characterized the authoritarian response of the Egyptian government to the COVID-19 pandemic. Through the case study of the expulsion of the foreign correspondent for The Guardian over contested outbreak data, the article argues that authorities in Egypt exploited the pandemic for political ends by silencing critics and by manipulating the public opinion.
ArtNodes Journal, 2019
This article presents two case studies of disinformation from the Middle East which fit within th... more This article presents two case studies of disinformation from the Middle East which fit within the broader academic discussion of 'post-truth politics'. The first case study analyzes a disinformation campaign via social media targeted at a Syrian humanitarian organization known as the White Helmets. The second case study recounts Turkish President Erdog ˘ an's strategy to leverage the mobilization and consensus-building potential of social media after the 2013 Gezi Park protests. Both cases present similar dynamics of authoritarian or autocratic regimes coopting social media, particularly in the form of citizen journalism, user-generated content (UGC) and 'trolling' supported by State authorities to challenge the opposition's discourses.
Popular Commmunication, 2012
This article presents a discussion and analysis of the most prominent fake news show on Italian t... more This article presents a discussion and analysis of the most prominent fake news show on Italian television, Striscia la Notizia, to demonstrate how it can effectively mount critiques against the political class, expose institutional inefficiencies, and mobilize audiences for matters of public interests.
In order to analyze Striscia’s original brand of journalism, the article starts with a thorough account of the historical conditions that have fostered its rise to prominence. The second part of the article is based on a textual analysis of a number of segments from various episodes, which I selected in order to provide an account of the techniques, themes, and language adopted by the show.
By providing both theoretical and empirical knowledge, I therefore wish to interrogate the ways in which fake news programs such as Striscia can create effective sites for citizens to engage with matters of public interest, while in the process challenging political institutions and the traditional role of mediation of official news outlets.
Blowing up the brand: critical perspectives on promotional culture, 2010
Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is a figure who has attracted much attention in... more Italy’s former prime minister, Silvio Berlusconi, is a figure who has attracted much attention in the global media and who has become for better or worse a protagonist of contemporary Italian history.
Berlusconi’s unprecedented fusion of media, sports, and politics, his provocative statements and antics, and his sexual and financial scandals have brought him constant attention within national and international politics. He is also Italy’s second wealthiest man, having built a fortune through media, retailing, finance, and sports before entering politics.
In this chapter, we will examine how Berlusconi has used branding in his transition from business to politics and how in the process he has become a unique type of political brand that increases its force through the interconnection of formerly separate social and cultural domains.
Journal of Italian Cinema and Media Studies, 2015
This article discusses the ability of reality television shows to serve as outlets for the repres... more This article discusses the ability of reality television shows to serve as outlets for the representation of social and political issues on Italian television. To this end the article offers an in-depth critical analysis of selected episodes of two editions of the popular Italian reality television show L’Isola dei Famosi/Celebrity Island, which aired on public television channel RAI 2 from 2003 to 2012.
In particular, the article focuses on the 2008 season, characterized by the victory of Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender entertainer and activist of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer (LGBTQ) community in Italy; and on the 2010 season, which featured the participation of homosexual writer Aldo Busi, who was expelled from the show for his remarks against religious and political institutions.
A close analysis of these two seasons reveals the ways in which popular prime time entertainment programmes such as a reality television show can generate significant public exposure for marginal identities and controversial political topics.
Communications, Media, Design Journal, 2016
This article interrogates the potential for the Idol talent show format, a sub-genre of the broad... more This article interrogates the potential for the Idol talent show format, a sub-genre of the broader reality tv genre, and of its imitations to generate new forms of public expression and social inclusion in China and India, thus promoting a democratisation of the respective public spheres.
In particular, the article discusses the ability of the talent show genre to represent local identities vis-à-vis established cultural models endorsed or promoted by national cultural institutions such as state televisions.
To this end, a comparative analysis is presented of two popular talent shows during the last decade - China’s Super Girl and India’s Indian Idol 3 - whose cultural and social effects could be seen as carrying political implications for the issues of identity and citizenship in the world regions under observation.
TV Formats Worldwide., 2009
This paper wishes to consider the format transfer not of traditional news but of news parody – a ... more This paper wishes to consider the format transfer not of traditional news but of news parody – a genre that has become increasingly politicized - from Italy to Bulgaria. One of the first news parodies in the world was Striscia la Notizia in 1988 in Italy, the format of which was exported to Bulgaria in 2000.
This is an unusual example of format transfer because news and news parody in the case presented are rarely formatted and transferred. In this paper we wish to explore the reasons why this transfer took place and what impact the program in question has had on the two nations and on their media
The New Media and Technocultures Reader, 2011
Book Reviews by Gabriele Cosentino
New Lines, 2024
While the attempted assassination of Naguib Mahfouz 30 years ago is usually seen as a story of Is... more While the attempted assassination of Naguib Mahfouz 30 years ago is usually seen as a story of Islamist extremism, the original controversy surrounding his work was rooted more in politics than religion
Bustan: The Middle East Book Review (2022) 13 (2): 190–197., 2022
With his highly engaging and painstakingly researched book Owen Jones makes a much-needed additio... more With his highly engaging and painstakingly researched book Owen Jones makes a much-needed addition to the field of post-truth and disinformation studies. The focus of the book on the MENA region—more specifically on the Gulf area—allows its author to provide a wealth of examples that demonstrate how sophisticated disinformation
operations are not the prerogative of well-known purveyors of
state-sponsored propaganda and deception such as Russia and China or of outlets operating within the populist and right-wing information ecosystems in the United States and in Europe. Deception as a tool of public opinion control and as an instrument of aggressive foreign policy has been embraced by a growing club of authoritarian or autocratic regimes in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Qatar, among others are also active contributors to the growing “deception order".
Church, Communication and Culture, 2021
To what extent can social media affect the knowledge of the truth and how much can it fabricate t... more To what extent can social media affect the knowledge of the truth and how much can it fabricate truth? That is the question that Gabriele Cosentino’s book ‘Social Media and The Post-Truth World – The Global Dynamics of Disinformation’ attempts to answer. It discusses the topic of post-truth from a global perspective.
In the six chapters that comprise the text, including the final chapter, the author identifies and describes the post-truth world order (Chapter 1) to then examine in the following chapters examples that he considers emblematic of the global phenomenon of post-truth and of the global dynamics of disinformation. And so, throughout more than one hundred
forty pages, Cosentino analyzes the Russian-directed operations in the United States (Chapter 2) to influence the 2016 presidential election. Chapter 3 discusses the so-called Pizzagate phenomenon and the Great Replacement theory in connection with conspiracy
theories, and Chapter 4 analyzes the 2014 disinformation campaign that Syria and Russia launched against the search and rescue organization called the White Helmets. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the current problem of violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, fostered by Facebook’s controversial role in facilitating hate speech and disinformation in the country, as well as what happened in Brazil during the 2018 general election, by way of Bolsonaro.
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Book Chapters by Gabriele Cosentino
These questions and speculations, some legitimate, some dubious, have been swirling around the globe through social media, alternative information outlets, instant messaging apps, and mainstream media since the beginning of the pandemic, feeding the 'infodemic' - an overwhelming surge of information, misinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories which continue to linger in public and private discourse.
With an original take on concepts and theories drawn from post-truth and disinformation studies, the book analyses the 'infodemic' through a series of global case studies. Framing the infodemic as a complex, multi-layered phenomenon with vast geopolitical implications, Gabriele Cosentino reveals the global competition for control in twenty-first century geopolitics between Western liberal democracies and non-Western autocracies, and above all between the United States and China.
During the first part of 2020, there seemed to be a pretty solid scientific consensus that the virus had a natural origin. Such apparent agreement among scientists was, however, never fully solidified into a definitive theory based on dispositive evidence, as doubts remained on how the virus ‘spillover’ actually happened, and the intermediary transmitting agent required for the spillover remained elusive.
After the second half of 2020, as evidence for this hypothesis couldn’t
be found, the laboratory accident hypothesis, initially dismissed as a
conspiracy theory, started to gain more traction in scientific circles, and
the activities of various Wuhan research centres began to be more closely
scrutinized.
As more scientists around the world started to probe into
the microbiology of the virus and into early epidemiological trends,
a growing dissenting opinion emerged, primarily via social media,
some media coverage by scientific journalists as well as in scientific
literature, arguing that a laboratory accident should not be ruled out.
The laboratory accident narrative has often overlapped in
public discussions, especially on social media, with rumours and
conspiracy theories about the virus as a bioweapon, especially at
the beginning of the pandemic, when information about the new
disease was very scarce and most of it was filtering through the tightly
controlled Chinese information environment.
At the beginning there was a lot of confusion between the two versions even in mainstream journalism, which created the association between engineered virus and bioweapon.
Because of the post-truth context outlined in the introductory
chapter, and of the high political and geopolitical stakes involved,
all hypotheses on the origin of Covid-19 were from the start mired
in misinformation, disinformation and political polarization.
This chapter also focuses on the tension between misinformation,
especially conspiracy theories, and fact-checking. More specifically,
I observe how the concept of conspiracy theory was used both
legitimately, to protect the scientific discourse from misinformation
and disinformation, and illegitimately, especially as an ‘ad hominem’
attack by institutional actors to rigidly frame the conversation on the
origin of Covid-19 as a natural event, and to disqualify all dissenting
voices.
The era of post-truth politics is thus here to stay, and its reach is increasingly global: Russian trolls organizing events on social media attended by thousands of unaware American citizens; European social media users spreading fictional political narratives in support of the Syrian regime; Facebook offering a platform for a harassment campaign by Buddhist ultranationalists in Myanmar that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims.
These are just some of the examples that demonstrate the dangerous effects of the Internet-driven global diffusion of disinformation and misinformation. Grounded on a theoretical framework yet written in an engaging and accessible way, this timely book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, policymakers and citizens concerned with the impact of social media on politics.
Papers by Gabriele Cosentino
In order to analyze Striscia’s original brand of journalism, the article starts with a thorough account of the historical conditions that have fostered its rise to prominence. The second part of the article is based on a textual analysis of a number of segments from various episodes, which I selected in order to provide an account of the techniques, themes, and language adopted by the show.
By providing both theoretical and empirical knowledge, I therefore wish to interrogate the ways in which fake news programs such as Striscia can create effective sites for citizens to engage with matters of public interest, while in the process challenging political institutions and the traditional role of mediation of official news outlets.
Berlusconi’s unprecedented fusion of media, sports, and politics, his provocative statements and antics, and his sexual and financial scandals have brought him constant attention within national and international politics. He is also Italy’s second wealthiest man, having built a fortune through media, retailing, finance, and sports before entering politics.
In this chapter, we will examine how Berlusconi has used branding in his transition from business to politics and how in the process he has become a unique type of political brand that increases its force through the interconnection of formerly separate social and cultural domains.
In particular, the article focuses on the 2008 season, characterized by the victory of Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender entertainer and activist of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer (LGBTQ) community in Italy; and on the 2010 season, which featured the participation of homosexual writer Aldo Busi, who was expelled from the show for his remarks against religious and political institutions.
A close analysis of these two seasons reveals the ways in which popular prime time entertainment programmes such as a reality television show can generate significant public exposure for marginal identities and controversial political topics.
In particular, the article discusses the ability of the talent show genre to represent local identities vis-à-vis established cultural models endorsed or promoted by national cultural institutions such as state televisions.
To this end, a comparative analysis is presented of two popular talent shows during the last decade - China’s Super Girl and India’s Indian Idol 3 - whose cultural and social effects could be seen as carrying political implications for the issues of identity and citizenship in the world regions under observation.
This is an unusual example of format transfer because news and news parody in the case presented are rarely formatted and transferred. In this paper we wish to explore the reasons why this transfer took place and what impact the program in question has had on the two nations and on their media
Book Reviews by Gabriele Cosentino
operations are not the prerogative of well-known purveyors of
state-sponsored propaganda and deception such as Russia and China or of outlets operating within the populist and right-wing information ecosystems in the United States and in Europe. Deception as a tool of public opinion control and as an instrument of aggressive foreign policy has been embraced by a growing club of authoritarian or autocratic regimes in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Qatar, among others are also active contributors to the growing “deception order".
In the six chapters that comprise the text, including the final chapter, the author identifies and describes the post-truth world order (Chapter 1) to then examine in the following chapters examples that he considers emblematic of the global phenomenon of post-truth and of the global dynamics of disinformation. And so, throughout more than one hundred
forty pages, Cosentino analyzes the Russian-directed operations in the United States (Chapter 2) to influence the 2016 presidential election. Chapter 3 discusses the so-called Pizzagate phenomenon and the Great Replacement theory in connection with conspiracy
theories, and Chapter 4 analyzes the 2014 disinformation campaign that Syria and Russia launched against the search and rescue organization called the White Helmets. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the current problem of violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, fostered by Facebook’s controversial role in facilitating hate speech and disinformation in the country, as well as what happened in Brazil during the 2018 general election, by way of Bolsonaro.
These questions and speculations, some legitimate, some dubious, have been swirling around the globe through social media, alternative information outlets, instant messaging apps, and mainstream media since the beginning of the pandemic, feeding the 'infodemic' - an overwhelming surge of information, misinformation, rumours and conspiracy theories which continue to linger in public and private discourse.
With an original take on concepts and theories drawn from post-truth and disinformation studies, the book analyses the 'infodemic' through a series of global case studies. Framing the infodemic as a complex, multi-layered phenomenon with vast geopolitical implications, Gabriele Cosentino reveals the global competition for control in twenty-first century geopolitics between Western liberal democracies and non-Western autocracies, and above all between the United States and China.
During the first part of 2020, there seemed to be a pretty solid scientific consensus that the virus had a natural origin. Such apparent agreement among scientists was, however, never fully solidified into a definitive theory based on dispositive evidence, as doubts remained on how the virus ‘spillover’ actually happened, and the intermediary transmitting agent required for the spillover remained elusive.
After the second half of 2020, as evidence for this hypothesis couldn’t
be found, the laboratory accident hypothesis, initially dismissed as a
conspiracy theory, started to gain more traction in scientific circles, and
the activities of various Wuhan research centres began to be more closely
scrutinized.
As more scientists around the world started to probe into
the microbiology of the virus and into early epidemiological trends,
a growing dissenting opinion emerged, primarily via social media,
some media coverage by scientific journalists as well as in scientific
literature, arguing that a laboratory accident should not be ruled out.
The laboratory accident narrative has often overlapped in
public discussions, especially on social media, with rumours and
conspiracy theories about the virus as a bioweapon, especially at
the beginning of the pandemic, when information about the new
disease was very scarce and most of it was filtering through the tightly
controlled Chinese information environment.
At the beginning there was a lot of confusion between the two versions even in mainstream journalism, which created the association between engineered virus and bioweapon.
Because of the post-truth context outlined in the introductory
chapter, and of the high political and geopolitical stakes involved,
all hypotheses on the origin of Covid-19 were from the start mired
in misinformation, disinformation and political polarization.
This chapter also focuses on the tension between misinformation,
especially conspiracy theories, and fact-checking. More specifically,
I observe how the concept of conspiracy theory was used both
legitimately, to protect the scientific discourse from misinformation
and disinformation, and illegitimately, especially as an ‘ad hominem’
attack by institutional actors to rigidly frame the conversation on the
origin of Covid-19 as a natural event, and to disqualify all dissenting
voices.
The era of post-truth politics is thus here to stay, and its reach is increasingly global: Russian trolls organizing events on social media attended by thousands of unaware American citizens; European social media users spreading fictional political narratives in support of the Syrian regime; Facebook offering a platform for a harassment campaign by Buddhist ultranationalists in Myanmar that led to the killing of thousands of Muslims.
These are just some of the examples that demonstrate the dangerous effects of the Internet-driven global diffusion of disinformation and misinformation. Grounded on a theoretical framework yet written in an engaging and accessible way, this timely book is a valuable resource for students, researchers, policymakers and citizens concerned with the impact of social media on politics.
In order to analyze Striscia’s original brand of journalism, the article starts with a thorough account of the historical conditions that have fostered its rise to prominence. The second part of the article is based on a textual analysis of a number of segments from various episodes, which I selected in order to provide an account of the techniques, themes, and language adopted by the show.
By providing both theoretical and empirical knowledge, I therefore wish to interrogate the ways in which fake news programs such as Striscia can create effective sites for citizens to engage with matters of public interest, while in the process challenging political institutions and the traditional role of mediation of official news outlets.
Berlusconi’s unprecedented fusion of media, sports, and politics, his provocative statements and antics, and his sexual and financial scandals have brought him constant attention within national and international politics. He is also Italy’s second wealthiest man, having built a fortune through media, retailing, finance, and sports before entering politics.
In this chapter, we will examine how Berlusconi has used branding in his transition from business to politics and how in the process he has become a unique type of political brand that increases its force through the interconnection of formerly separate social and cultural domains.
In particular, the article focuses on the 2008 season, characterized by the victory of Vladimir Luxuria, a transgender entertainer and activist of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transexual and Queer (LGBTQ) community in Italy; and on the 2010 season, which featured the participation of homosexual writer Aldo Busi, who was expelled from the show for his remarks against religious and political institutions.
A close analysis of these two seasons reveals the ways in which popular prime time entertainment programmes such as a reality television show can generate significant public exposure for marginal identities and controversial political topics.
In particular, the article discusses the ability of the talent show genre to represent local identities vis-à-vis established cultural models endorsed or promoted by national cultural institutions such as state televisions.
To this end, a comparative analysis is presented of two popular talent shows during the last decade - China’s Super Girl and India’s Indian Idol 3 - whose cultural and social effects could be seen as carrying political implications for the issues of identity and citizenship in the world regions under observation.
This is an unusual example of format transfer because news and news parody in the case presented are rarely formatted and transferred. In this paper we wish to explore the reasons why this transfer took place and what impact the program in question has had on the two nations and on their media
operations are not the prerogative of well-known purveyors of
state-sponsored propaganda and deception such as Russia and China or of outlets operating within the populist and right-wing information ecosystems in the United States and in Europe. Deception as a tool of public opinion control and as an instrument of aggressive foreign policy has been embraced by a growing club of authoritarian or autocratic regimes in the Middle East: Saudi Arabia, UAE, Iran, Egypt, and Qatar, among others are also active contributors to the growing “deception order".
In the six chapters that comprise the text, including the final chapter, the author identifies and describes the post-truth world order (Chapter 1) to then examine in the following chapters examples that he considers emblematic of the global phenomenon of post-truth and of the global dynamics of disinformation. And so, throughout more than one hundred
forty pages, Cosentino analyzes the Russian-directed operations in the United States (Chapter 2) to influence the 2016 presidential election. Chapter 3 discusses the so-called Pizzagate phenomenon and the Great Replacement theory in connection with conspiracy
theories, and Chapter 4 analyzes the 2014 disinformation campaign that Syria and Russia launched against the search and rescue organization called the White Helmets. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the current problem of violence against the Rohingya Muslims in Myanmar, fostered by Facebook’s controversial role in facilitating hate speech and disinformation in the country, as well as what happened in Brazil during the 2018 general election, by way of Bolsonaro.