FYS 052 Weaponized Media: Living in a World of Bots, Trolls, and Disinformation

Social media sites have become the most powerful distributors of information in human history. They’ve become not only sites of connection and friendship but also of power struggles and violence. This course will consider how malicious actors have weaponized media to change the outcomes of elections, facilitate genocide, and spread conspiracy theories. We will focus on the methods used to exploit social media and on the consequences such exploitation has for the nature of truth.