Hate and Disinformation on Social Media
SOC6-5a-Wed1
Sabine von Mering
This course will take place virtually on Zoom. Participation in this course requires a device (ideally a computer or tablet, rather than a cell phone) with a camera and microphone in good working order and basic familiarity with using Zoom and accessing email
March 12 - April 9
How is it that Americans re-elected Donald Trump, a convicted felon who tried to steal an election, who rejects the scientific consensus on climate change, who disparaged the COVID-19 vaccine and supported bizarre anti-scientific treatments for the virus at the cost of millions of lives, and is unabashedly sexist and racist? How did social media contribute to his re-election? Why was antisemitism on the rise long before October 7, 2023? What is fueling the right-wing extremists surging in countries across the world, including in members of the European Union such as Germany and the Netherlands?
In this course we will look at the spread of misinformation and hate through social media and its role in these developments. We will examine the 2024 elections in various countries and understand why the spread of hate and misinformation are not coincidental side-effects, but integral parts of the way social media are intended to operate. We will discuss the outcome-a misinformed, polarized, more aggressive, more hateful populace—and what to do about it.
The course will be organized around the following five main topics: social media and the elections of 2024, the technology and business model of social media, antisemitism and other forms of hate on social media, the spread of misinformation using climate change denial as an example, and effective ways to reduce the spread of misinformation and hate.
More facilitated discussion than lecture.
Course materials will be provided by the SGL. These include:
Jaron Lanier: Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now;
Max Fisher: The Chaos Machine;
Naomi Oreskes/Eric Conway: Merchants of Doubt;
Monika Huebscher and Sabine von Mering: Antisemitism on Social Media
Approx. 2 hours per week.
Sabine von Mering, Ph.D. is Director of the Center for German and European Studies, Professor of German, and Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and a core member of the Environmental Studies Program at Brandeis University in Waltham, MA. She has taught multiple popular BOLLI courses.