Misinformation and Democracy

This course trains students to write for public audiences. Students will engage with contemporary debates about misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories, and practice writing about those debates for various non-academic readerships. They will do this through four writing exercises: an “explainer,” a blog post, a book review, and an op-ed. Students will work on several drafts of each piece and provide feedback on the work of their classmates. In the course of their writing students will address questions such as whether the problem of an ill-informed public is new, whether it threatens democracy, and what remedies might be available. They will leave with a better understanding of how to be a public scholar.