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Farhad Manjoo: Learning To Live in a Post-Fact Society

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The Berkeley Cybersalon

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Farhad Manjoo on Swiftboat Veterans for Truth

04 min 40 sec

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Salon.com writer and author Farhad Manjoo explains how new media outlets allowed the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth to run a successful false information smear campaign against John Kerry.
Farhad Manjoo on a Society Unmoored from Facts

03 min 24 sec

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Salon.com writer and author Farhad Manjoo criticizes politicians for pandering to constituents' beliefs that are scientifically disproved, and sees it as a symptom of a deeper societal issue.
Mike Godwin on Historically Fragmented Opinion

05 min 45 sec

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By citing examples from the distant past, Wikimedia Foundation General Counsel Mike Godwin denies the assertion that today's fragmented society is due to a plethora of media outlets.
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01 hr 14 min 26 sec

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There are 2 comments on this program

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Previous FORAtv comments:

rocketdog

Posted: 08.05.09, 04:37 PM

Why is Zo Spencer on this panel? She may be a fine writer, but good god - listening to her ramble away at the mic is agonizing. I have no idea what any of her speech was about. Get to the point, please. Anyway, Manjoo and Godwin are great. ***** if you skip the Zo Spencer bits.

kboober

Posted: 05.10.08, 12:06 PM

This recent work by Manjoo is very important, in fact, critical, to the success of our new means of communicating with each other, minus a once-all powerful, centralized and tightly governed, network. It is perhaps too academic? BUT, in order to have a valid theory of communications, Info/message "A" needs to be sent to receiver, "B" via some media, "C." Relevant to this discussion and crucial to this process is point A, the information, which, if it's sheer gibberish, destroys the process entirely. Dangerous beyond words to describe, this level of MISinformation, spread into the very fabric of our society, would amount to a fatal viral infection and this new media would become what Edward R. Murrow most feared for the fate of commercial TV: nothing but lights and noise in a box. Sadly, in addition to this, Manjoo correctly notes that we far too often seek out info/POV which props up our own preconceptions and prejudices. Nothing will prove more critical to preserving the very integrity of this link of one to another than a vigorous vetting, via some sort of system still to be resolved, for filtering out the gibberish, mendacity, and a mind-control level of propaganda, with the identity of those special interests completely concealed. Our collective obligation is to become far more vigilant than some casual "caveat emptor" to all, and presume a society governed by laws and not by sheer mass manipulation will result. I applaud his efforts and the work of so many others to supply us with some kind of remedy, of which I can offer none.