The Multiverse of Misinformation, Episode 7 - On The Border Of Truth

CCEP Podcasts - Exploring Policy and Ethics in California

Welcome to the Multiverse of Misinformation, a podcast about misinformation and the way it affects the many facets of our life, produced by the California Center for Ethics and Policy--or “CCEP” --at Cal Poly Pomona and generously supported by the Cal Poly Pomona Special Projects for Improving the Classroom Experience grant program.

This season, we will explore the many ways in which misinformation affects our everyday lives through influencing, distorting, or driving the discourse in our society. In the past few years, the idea of misinformation has entered the zeitgeist through the concept of “fake news,” or online conspiracy theories shared by your relatives on Facebook, which is probably what most listeners will think of when they hear the term. However, misinformation is neither a new, nor a specifically online problem. In these episodes, the CCEP student fellows use examples from our own class discussions as well as their own lived experience to illustrate the many ways in which misinformation influences what we think, how we act, and what we believe.

In this exploration of the multiverse of misinformation, student fellow Luis Gama takes us to the borderlands, in this case the southern border of the United States, where he analyzes some of the political rhetoric surrounding immigration. He looks at some examples of commentary offered by Former President Donald Trump and other commentators, where migrants are painted as violent criminals and placing Americans in imminent danger. Instead of taking those harmful contentions as truth, he then provides factual and statistical data to provide the listener with understanding about who exactly it is that is crossing the border, and thus provide a glimpse at how this rhetoric serves a particular political agenda. He also provides some potential ways to counteract this rhetoric.

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Thanks for listening.