Organized Skepticism in the Age of Misinformation

Surviving the Kingdom of Gossip

Brett Bourbon, Renita Murimi

• Publisher: CRC Press
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781040324141
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Digital Marketing
• Index: Computer Science

Drawing from philosophy, information theory, and network science, Organized Skepticism in the Age of Misinformation: Surviving the Kingdom of Gossip offers a novel conceptual framework that views information as a form of gossip.

This book challenges the idea that truthfulness is a necessary, or even a relevant condition, of information. Instead, this book develops a conceptual framework in which information is understood as gossip, which fits within a more general account of information and knowledge as constrained but contingent social practices. Using this framework, this book provides a nuanced understanding of the "grammar" of gossip that permeates both online and real?orld environments and sheds light on the often overused and confused terms of our time: information, misinformation and knowledge.

This book offers a fundamental reconfiguration of the evolving virtual interdependence of humans and information technology. It is a key resource for students and scholars in areas relating to social media, information diffusion, human/computer interface, and computational social science.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Authors
• ◾ Introduction
• Part I A Crisis of Knowledge and Everyday Epistemology
• Part II Information and Misinformation
• Part III Gossip and Rumor
• Part IV Online Interfaces
• Part V Conclusion
• Index