In this talk, Pablo Boczkowski of Northwestern University will share work from a book-in-progress (under contract with MIT Press, and co-authored with Eugenia Mitchelstein, MarÃa Celeste Wagner and Facundo Suenzo) about the reception of misinformation during the 2019 presidential election in Argentina. The book draws from seventy in-depth interviews and a three-wave panel online survey and embedded experiments conducted before, during and after the election.Â
Their analysis shows high levels of agency and distrust among citizens in Argentina, who draw upon a historical memory of longstanding patterns of deception by media and the government, and a widespread disappointment regarding the role of the institutions of the polity to make sense of contemporary misinformation. Much like the patina that sometimes coats the surface of artwork over time and protects them from corrosive environmental factors, they find that a stance of distrust lessens the negative consequences of misinformation while also reducing the efficacy of processes designed to correct it. They argue that this patina of distrust can become a protective coating for the exercise of informed citizenry, but not without negative consequences for the experience of everyday life and the character of collective action.
This talk is part of the Digital Seminar, a D^3 Assembly series that is open to faculty, doctoral students, and academic researchers.
Email us at d3ln@hbs.edu for information on attending this seminar.