Misinformation

Today's edition of The Tennessean carried a story about a German broadcaster, RTL, and its posting of a fake video of Michael Jackson emerging from the coroner's van. RTL was interested in how quickly misinformation and conspiracy theories spread. RTL posted the video for only one day on YouTube. It went viral and received 880,000 hits. Now it has been picked up by other sites around the world.

Misinformation is nothing new. Both the Axis and Allied powers made extensive use of misinformation during WWII. Some have concluded that the success of the D-Day invasion stemmed in large part from the successful attempt to misinform the Nazis about the location of the invasion so that they moved troops away from Normandy to meet the challenge which never materialized. More recently, Nimmo and Combs have suggested in The New Propaganda that misinformation abounds in political discussion.

What surprises most about the RTL experience is the speed with which one can obtain a large audience. While I was in graduate school, several churches began a "Clean Up TV" campaign. The campaign gained forced by using misinformation that CBS would begin airing adult content movies on network television, albeit after the 10 o'clock news. Of course, CBS had no intention of airing such movies, but the organizers of the campaign succeeded in getting churches to send signed petitions to CBS. The campaign took about two months to complete its work and did not reach even half of those reached in the RTL hoax.

Today, both political parties and special interest groups air commercials and produce sound bites full of misinformation. Fortunately, some groups have taken it upon themselves to check for misinformation in political news, speeches and campaigns. Politifact won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for its work in fact-checking politicians (http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/), and the Annenberg Public Policy Center hasw produced Fact Check (http://www.factcheck.org/) to work on the same problem. I would certainly recommend that anyone interested in the health care debate invesitigate these websites before listening to talk radio. :) Perhaps if all us did our fact checks, we would be less likely to believe the thriller about Michael Jackson.