Digital Fever: Taming the Big Business of Disinformation - Paperback

by Bernhard Poerksen (Author), Alison Rosemary Koeck (Translator), Wolfram Karl Koeck (Translator)

Terror warnings, fake news, spectacles and scandals in real time - the networked world has wound itself up into a nervous frenzy, where everything has become visible: the banal and the terrible, the uninhibited abuse and the anonymous attack.

Translated for the first time into English, Digital Fever analyses the patterns of outrage and agitation that have come to define social media and the Internet, exposing their devastating impact on our notions of truth, debate, authority and power. In this endless cycle of outrage, Poerksen argues that the intelligent use of information must become part of the general education provided by schools: the digital society must be transformed into an editorial one. In order for democracy to survive, we must as a society achieve media maturity.

A blazing tour of the contemporary landscape of fake-news, echo chambers, disinformation, manipulation, and the turbulence that democracy is undergoing, this book not only analyses this digital economy of outrage, but serves as a guiding light to overcome it.

Back Jacket

Each person is now consumer, producer and distributor of stories - chosen for excitement rather than veracity. Bernhard Poerksen tells us that there is a way forward but only if schools utterly transform learning and prepare students to dissect and understand this brave new world of endless digital flow.

-- Jerry Brown, governor of California (1975-83; 2011-2019)

"Bernhard Poerksen´s heady description of the communications world we are moving toward is unlike any I have read. It made me rebuild my understanding of what is going on. Try it against yours."

-- Jay Rosen, writer and professor of journalism at New York University

Terror warnings, fake news, spectacles and scandals in real time - the networked world has wound itself up into a nervous frenzy, where everything has become visible: the banal and the terrible, the uninhibited abuse and the anonymous attack.

Translated for the first time into English, Digital Fever analyses the patterns of outrage and agitation that have come to define social media and the Internet, exposing their devastating impact on our notions of truth, debate, authority and power. In this endless cycle of outrage, Poerksen argues that the intelligent use of information must become part of the general education provided by schools: the digital society must be transformed into an editorial one. In order for democracy to survive, we must as a society achieve media maturity.

A blazing tour of the contemporary landscape of fake-news, echo chambers, disinformation, manipulation, and the turbulence that democracy is undergoing, this book not only analyses this digital economy of outrage, but serves as a guiding light to overcome it.

Author Biography

Bernhard Poerksen, born in 1969, is Professor of Media Studies at the University of Tübingen. Rising to prominence through his work on scandal, he has published on a rich array of topics, including 'The Unleashed Scandal' with Hanne Detel, 'Truth is the Invention of a Liar' with cybernetician Heinz von Foerster, and 'From Being to Doing' with neurobiologist Humberto Maturana. In 2008 he was voted 'Professor of the Year' in Germany in recognition of the quality of his teaching.