This is the accepted version of the paper.This version of the publication may differ from the final published version. leftish think-tank) explained that in the late eighteenth century a new political class, the bourgeoisie, came to the fore in Britain in particular and formed a public body which, in sharp contrast to the old authorities, notably the state and the church, provided the conditions for reason-based, public opinion. The creation of a network of institutions by the bourgeoisie within the civil society, and the launch of a number of newspapers more specifically, provided the means through which private thoughts could become public. Permanent repository linkLibraries and universities became the places for public debate, while publishing enterprises formed the means by which government was criticized. That new public sphere was in principle open to all and protected from the power of both the church and the state.
The recent spread of online disinformation has been profound and has played a central role in the growth of populist sentiments around the world. Facilitating its progression has been politically and economically motivated culprits who have ostensibly taken advantage of the digital freedoms available to them. At the heart of these freedoms lie social media organisations that only a few years earlier techno-optimists were identifying as catalysts of an enhanced digital democracy. In order to curtail the erosion of information, policy reform will no doubt be essential. The UK's Department of Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Disinformation and ‘fake news’ Report and Cairncross Review, and the European Commission's Report on Disinformation are three recent examples seeking to investigate how precisely such reform policy might be implemented. Just as important is how social media organisations take on more responsibility and apply self-regulating mechanisms that stifle disinformation across their platforms (something the aforementioned reports identify). Doing so will go a long way in restoring legitimacy in these significant institutions. Facebook (which includes Instagram and Whatsapp), is the largest social media organisation in the world and must primarily bear the burden of this responsibility. The purpose of this article is to offer a descriptive account of Facebook's public announcements regarding how it tackles disinformation and fake news. Based on a qualitative content analysis covering the period November 16th 2016–March 4th 2019, this article will set out some groundwork on how to hold social media platforms more accountable for how they handle disinformation.
Any person who does any unauthorized act in relation to this publication This volume would not have been written without the generous sabbatical scheme of the Department of Sociology, City University London, which allowed me to take research time. I would like to express my gratitude to the anonymous reviewers of the book proposal for their welcome comments and suggestions at the beginning of this effort. I am indebted to Cees Hamelink for providing the Guest Foreword and to Robert Picard, Marc Raboy, Philip Napoli and Terry Flew for writing the blurbs for the back cover. I am also very grateful to
Since the 2010s, we witness the rise of populism and nationalism as part of a reaction against the global policies of the last 30 years in Western liberal democracies and beyond. This article seeks to unpack the rise of populism and nationalism and its relationship to social media. We review the relevant literature relating to the globalization paradigm and assess how it has influenced communication studies. The rise of the globalization theory coincides with key advancements in the post-Cold War world, such as the growth of international trade, the global movement of people, the increase in the number of international laws and forums, economic liberalism, as well as the rise of the internet and global digital communication networks. But while the global era denotes a cosmopolitan vision, economic insecurity, growing inequality in wealth distribution, as well as cultural change and shifts in traditional values and norms have brought about a broader concern that globalization is associated with a shift of power to transnational elites, whose impact upon common people’s life and experiences is not fully acknowledged. Contemporary populism has been associated with nationalism, but also with the active use of social media platforms as alternative communication sites to mainstream media which is seen as having been captured by elite consensus politics. This complicates the relationship between truth and free expression in an age of social media, meaning that we need to account for the role of such platforms in the rise of populism and ‘post-truth’ politics, as well as its scope to advance the goals and strategies of progressive social movements.
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