Wrong: How Media, Politics, and Identity Drive Our Appetite for Misinformation

Political scientist Young (Irony and Outrage) attempts to uncover what makes people susceptible to misinformation in this thought-provoking if somewhat mistargeted treatise. Young opens with recent events that she asserts illustrate the power of false beliefs—the January 6 insurrection and widespread resistance to Covid-19 vaccines—and links both to her own experiences dealing with her late husband Mike’s struggle with cancer. The return of Mike’s tumor after a period of remission led Young down internet rabbit holes—she began speculating about the role local pollution and medical malpractice played in his illness—that resulted in her embrace of what she calls “conspiracy theory beliefs.” Reflecting on this episode, she hypothesizes that belief in misinformation stems from the need “for comprehension, control and community,” which people satisfy in ways that are influenced by their social identities, including being too-easily swayed by those with whom they identify. Her final chapter offers “Solutions to Identity-Driven Wrongness,” which, alongside exhorting average people to “disrupt” their identities through “intellectual humility,” most saliently consist of changes to the media, such as bolstering local journalism and increasing transparency in social media algorithms. While it feels convoluted to blame “identity” for misbelief, only to conclude that the problem would be greatly reduced if the media took action, this is nevertheless an intriguing deep dive into the current American information environment. (Oct.)