Time.news – Access to information is increasingly within everyone’s reach. Not only TV and newspapers but also and above all the web, spread news to the bitter end.
But how is the quality of this information? How can we distinguish it from disinformation? And above all, how can we defend ourselves from disinformation? Here’s to the rescue “Do-it-yourself truth Critical thinking as a barrier to disinformation”, a book by journalist Aldo Mantineo published with Melino Nerella Edizioni.
“Propaganda and disinformation strategies are ancient – Antonio Nicita, full professor of Economic Policy at the Lumsa University (Rome-Palermo) explains in the preface – we have become accustomed to knowing them in the relationship between power and freedom, in many eras including the analogical one in which, in the traditional or mainstream media, it was very the possibility of direct access to information is more reduced, as instead occurs with the advent of the digital society. The web seems to offer a privileged field for organized disinformation”.
Ma, “there is a demand for quality information that cannot be ignored“, Nicita explains again, to which adequate answers must also be given through journalism” which helps the citizen to reason with his own head without seeking the comfort of conspiracy theorists or easy prophets “.
The pandemic and with it the much information that the world has received in a continuous stream, demonstrate that as Nicita explains, “scientific knowledge does not have the truth in its pocket but proceeds humbly, to verify hypotheses and is therefore the most protected space and safe in which to start the debate.Disinformation strategies, on the other hand, offer us certainty and security, but for this very reason we must doubt them. Whoever offers us plots and suspicions is talking to our belly so that our head stops thinking. If there is one thing that disinformation does not admit, it is comparison, doubt, discussion, error. Disinformation aims, on the contrary, to separate and polarize. He loves to play with the misunderstandings between freedom, truth and power and to build his own dogmas”, underlines Nicita. But disinformation strategies do not only concern the web.
“Often – adds the expert – too places where editorial responsibility exists alternative facts are relaunched and they follow the same strategies, both for capturing the attention of readers/users and for political partisanship. The overall result is that bad information prevails over quality information”.
“Do-it-yourself truth”, explains the author, reminds us that “today we are dealing with a world in which each one tries to construct truths for his own use and consumption. It is almost the sublimation of do-it-yourself, it is a scenario in which the search for truth does not represent a demanding and laborious process but any common object to be assembled according to one’s taste and utility. It is a world in which the dividing line between true and probable has thinned more and more until practically completely blurring leading, in some cases, the narrated fact to slip into the slimy swamps of disinformation”.
And U.S? Should we make the best of a bad situation? “Of course – underlines Mantineo – the answer is no. If anything, we need to equip ourselves more and more with adequate tools in order not to lose the right course while navigating (especially on the net)”.
We need to put a stop to the publication of fake news and Mantineo’s book, in this sense, is certainly an excellent “tool” for study, analysis and defense.