From Propaganda In Focus:
Abstract
Why are we bombarded by fact-checks and “anti-disinformation” efforts in our timeline scrolls? When one reads news, further, they often find that “experts” are common sources behind whatever claim media professionals make, no matter how outlandish or disconnected from reality such claims may be. Through his concept and exploration of spectacle, a totalizing, negating force over our lives that results in unlife, French Philosopher Guy Debord’s famous Society of the Spectacle (1967) and his follow-up booklet, Comments on the Society of the Spectacle (1988), provide insights to these and other interconnected phenomena. When it comes to “fact-checks” and “experts”, Debord is clear: in a society subjugated by the economy, where “everything that was once directly lived has faded into representation,” such professionals do not exist to provide us the truth — they exist to serve the state and media through lies and distortions spun into what appears as true. If the “experts” lose influence, it will be because the public has learned and can articulate that their job is to systematically lie.
“Disinformation” appears as one of the biggest bogeymen in today’s increasingly online world. Governments warn of the dangers the phenomenon apparently poses to society and democracy, and mainstream media organizations in turn direct resources to counter-disinformation and fact-checking efforts. In the name of “being informed,” people often cannot go online without being bombarded by fact-checks or warnings to watch what content they consume and share with their social and professional networks.
While anti-disinformation efforts proliferate, what’s missing from the conversation is a discussion about power. Of course, the powerful have reasons for wanting to combat what they consider to be “disinformation” — they want their version of the truth to become ours. Many commentators observe as such, noting that so-called disinformation researchers, fact-checkers, and experts are often partisan in nature, and themselves frequently disseminate things that are not true....
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