AoIR14 Conference – Denver, COOctober 25, 2013
Jessie Daniels, PhDCUNY-Graduate Center and Hunter College
Deception, Propaganda & Epistemologyon the Anti-Social Web
@JessieNYC#ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
The first page of search engine
results@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
<cloaked sites> : disguise authorship in order to conceal political agenda
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
<cloaked sites> : examples of deception & propaganda with features that are unique to the web
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
<cloaked sites> : used by individuals, social movements, corporate interests
@JessieNYC #ir14
“Yeah, because the site itself, it says, ‘Martin Luther King dot org’ so I guess they’re dedicated to
that.” (study participant, age 18)
@JessieNYC #ir14
“I actually have never, I think, in my life gone to like the third
page, or the second page, because I just stop at the first page…because I mean, there
must be a reason why everything’s on the first page
and the rest of the stuff is later.”
(study participant, age 16)
@JessieNYC #ir14
evaluating pairs of websites
@JessieNYC #ir14
The Racial Politics of “Bias”
@JessieNYC #ir14
“Well, you know, in looking at this site, it appears to be created by his widow, or his
family, so, it could be biased.”
(study participant, 17)
@JessieNYC #ir14
“Two Sides to Everything”
@JessieNYC #ir14
“I mean, I don’t think I would disagree with it. I’m sure there are some slaves that were treated
well. So, I can understand their point of
view. There’s always two sides to everything.”
(study participant, age 17)
@JessieNYC #ir14
<anti-abortion cloaked site>
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
“complications for girls”
@JessieNYC #ir14
“post-abortion syndrome”
@JessieNYC #ir14
not a medical condition
@JessieNYC #ir14
rhetorical strategy of the pro-life movement
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
brick-and-mortar “crisis pregnancy centers”
@JessieNYC #ir14
<climate change denial>
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
“Americans for Balanced Energy Choices”
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
<my argument>
@JessieNYC #ir14
<epistemology>
@JessieNYC #ir14
how we know what we say we know
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
Enlightenment notions of ‘truth’ rooted in empiricism and rationalism have been the cornerstone of racist culture, ideology and ‘science.’
@JessieNYC #ir14
Enlightenment notions of race, racism and slavery were foundational to Ivy League institutions in the U.S.
@JessieNYC #ir14
<political struggle over knowledge>
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
“Social movements in the Information Age
are essentially mobilized
around cultural values...
[and seek] to seize
the power of the minds, not
state power.”~ Manuel Castells, 1997
individuals
social movements
corporate interests
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
affordances become deceptions
@JessieNYC #ir14
on the anti-social web, URLs are propaganda tools
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
@JessieNYC #ir14
truth v. truthiness = impasse
@JessieNYC #ir14
<new technologies require new epistemologies>
@JessieNYC #ir14
Thank you!
@JessieNYC
@JessieNYC #ir14
