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A review by mollysmith1313
A Firehose of Falsehood: The Story of Disinformation by Teri Kanefield
4.0
I picked up this book because I read and learned a lot from “Why The People: The case for Democracy,” another book in the World Citizen Comics series.
The majority of this book uses historical examples of past tyrants to explain the differences and overlap between propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation. The book’s goals include explaining to the reader why democracy requires truth and hard proven facts as it draws its authority from laws—not the whims and emotional manipulation of political leaders. The text tells us that democracies, “by nature, tend to expand and grow more inclusive…as the electorate becomes more diverse, people with authoritarian dispositions become more uncomfortable…there will always be an authoritarian push back against an expanding democracy.” The text warns that “fascism takes root when myth and lies crowd truth from the public sphere.” It’s tricky, isn’t it? Historical examples that took place in times and in countries not the United States is easier for the modern American to read because they can easily distance themselves from those examples. They weren’t at the end of the “firehose of falsehood” in Persia in 486 BCE or in Russia during the 1930s. But it gets a lot more difficult to read once you get to the last third of the book, which covers Trump before the 2016 election, Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election (The Mueller Report), extremist conspiracy theories that led to mass confusion and frustration (deep state, globalist, pizzagate, Sandy Hook hoax), Trump after the 2016 election, Trump during the 2020 election and after (stop the steal), and more. Ten of millions of Americans were/are being blasted by “firehoses of falsehood” for the last decade when it comes to politics and culture wars. And tens of millions of people (on both sides of the two party political aisle) still can’t agree on what was/is the truth and what were/are the lies. So I think an American with longstanding right-leaning politics might just think the last third of the book is a bunch of lies. That might lead them to discredit that whole part of the book, even if the book ends in a detailed Notes and Bibliography section to consider.
All that being said, I respect what the author and graphic artist set out to accomplished in this book. Given what I’ve described above, I don’t know how many bookstores or libraries will carry/sell this book, but at least it’s out there for people to consider.
The majority of this book uses historical examples of past tyrants to explain the differences and overlap between propaganda, misinformation, and disinformation. The book’s goals include explaining to the reader why democracy requires truth and hard proven facts as it draws its authority from laws—not the whims and emotional manipulation of political leaders. The text tells us that democracies, “by nature, tend to expand and grow more inclusive…as the electorate becomes more diverse, people with authoritarian dispositions become more uncomfortable…there will always be an authoritarian push back against an expanding democracy.” The text warns that “fascism takes root when myth and lies crowd truth from the public sphere.” It’s tricky, isn’t it? Historical examples that took place in times and in countries not the United States is easier for the modern American to read because they can easily distance themselves from those examples. They weren’t at the end of the “firehose of falsehood” in Persia in 486 BCE or in Russia during the 1930s. But it gets a lot more difficult to read once you get to the last third of the book, which covers Trump before the 2016 election, Russia’s involvement in the 2016 election (The Mueller Report), extremist conspiracy theories that led to mass confusion and frustration (deep state, globalist, pizzagate, Sandy Hook hoax), Trump after the 2016 election, Trump during the 2020 election and after (stop the steal), and more. Ten of millions of Americans were/are being blasted by “firehoses of falsehood” for the last decade when it comes to politics and culture wars. And tens of millions of people (on both sides of the two party political aisle) still can’t agree on what was/is the truth and what were/are the lies. So I think an American with longstanding right-leaning politics might just think the last third of the book is a bunch of lies. That might lead them to discredit that whole part of the book, even if the book ends in a detailed Notes and Bibliography section to consider.
All that being said, I respect what the author and graphic artist set out to accomplished in this book. Given what I’ve described above, I don’t know how many bookstores or libraries will carry/sell this book, but at least it’s out there for people to consider.