Speaker: Peter K. Fallon, Ph.D., Professor of Journalism and Media Studies
With the US Presidential election of 2016, a new phrase entered the American lexicon: fake news. We are witnessing something akin to mass hysteria over the publishing of “alternative facts.” In the last five years, thousands of newspapers in the US and around the world (a quick Google search with the terms “fake news” turns up more than 80 million results, a Google news search gives us more than 53 million, and the terms “editorials about fake news” an additional 400 thousand) have generated hand-wringing editorials warning of the threat to democracy posed by fake news, never stopping to consider the fact that what passes (or once passed) for “real news” has left Americans woefully ignorant not only of their world, but of the country they inhabit, or that Neil Postman, cultural critic and media gadfly, warned us in his crushing commentary on our “age of entertainment” Amusing Ourselves to Death that television was already doing damage to the meaning and function of democracy. That was in 1985.
But all of a sudden, we’re frightened beyond comprehension of “fake news.” We’re not, it should be noted, frightened about “real news” that focuses on celebrities, that degrades political discourse, that makes celebrities of politicians (and politicians of celebrities), that lusts after scandal, that reports on crime disproportionately to its commission, that celebrates consumption, that deifies athletes, that stereotypes minorities and immigrants, that excuses the police execution of minorities, that demands equal time for even the most moronic of opinions, and that thrives on competition and controversy, but almost entirely ignores the most important issues we all need to know about in order to be responsible citizens, leaves us ignorant of the world we live in, and ignorant of the perversion of our democratic processes and institutions. It’s all just more content generated by the mass information industries and spewing day and night from the various outlets in our homes, our cars, and our pockets and purses. What isn’t trivial is often downright meaningless, and the “value” of these messages (to the extent we can pretend they have any value at all) is in their newness and, consequently, their salability. And we’re perfectly comfortable with that. But beware of fake news
The phrase “fake news” appears to have taken on the same meaning in the mind of the masses as the word “propaganda” has; that is to say it is a dangerous threat only to the weak-minded in society, but not to me. In this pose, as in others, we surrender our individuality (while simultaneously self-assured we’re asserting and protecting it) by failing to acknowledge our own faults, our own weaknesses, our own fears and prejudices and taking steps to account for and correct them. It is here, perhaps, that the real danger to democracy lies.
Dr. Peter K. Fallon’s BIO
The resident curmudgeon of the Department of Communication, Dr. Peter K Fallon is the author of two award-winning books, Why the Irish Speak English (Marshall McLuhan Award for Outstanding Book, 2007) and The Metaphysics of Media (Lewis Mumford Award for Outstanding Scholarship, 2010), and a third book, Cultural Defiance, Cultural Deviance (2013). His fourth book, Propaganda 2.1: Understanding Propaganda in the Digital Age, will be published this winter by Cascade Press. He was active in the Occupy movement between 2011 and 2012, supports the Catholic social justice movement (Pax Christi), and is an Associate of the Sinsinawa Dominicans.
A veteran of twenty-three years in television, seventeen of those years at NBC’s TODAY program in New York, Dr. Fallon spent several of those years either working full-time while pursuing his Doctorate (studying under Neil Postman in New York University’s Media Ecology program), working full time and teaching as an adjunct, or working full time and writing his dissertation — or some combination of all three. He was Assistant Professor of Public Communication at Molloy College in Rockville Centre, NY, from 1993 until 2003, and joined the Roosevelt University faculty in October of 2003.