Unspun

Local news is collapsing across America, creating dangerous information gaps. Are journalism educators positioned to be part of the solution? Dr. Sturg examines the real challenges facing regional media, the ethical dilemmas journalism schools face and some innovations that are already making a difference. The local news crisis explained : What communities lose when local news goes away Where jour...

In this UnSpun rewind, DrSturg talks polling with political scientist Dr. Ken Fernandez. Can polls be trusted after 2016? We separate polling facts from fiction on topics like margin of error. Ken shares his insider take on how campaigns use polls and why solid polling matters for a functioning democracy. Get an expert take on improving polling for future elections. Get UnSpun. Follow Ken Twitter...

In this comprehensive review episode, we tackle the growing crisis of misinformation in our fractured media landscape. As major elections unfold globally, false information spreads faster than ever—but you have the power to protect yourself. Learn the essential skills to verify information, recognize persuasive manipulation tactics, and help others think more critically without creating conflict....

We all know politicians lie. But how do they get away with it? One surprising reason is because their supporters don't hold it against them. In fact, the sometimes like it. In this week's episode of UnSpun, DrSturg looks at the research on political truth. Whether a lie is a problem depends on a lot of things: the emotions of the listener, the context it's said in and even if the liste...

What happens when censorship stops looking like censorship? In this episode of  UnSpun  journal club, DrSturg looks at the book  The New Censorship: How the War on the Media Is Taking Us Down,  which looks at how populist authoritains harm journalism without controlling the press by using society's norms against it. These leaders are all over the world, but have in common a view of a society s...

Everyone wants your attention. News organizations want it. Politicians want it. Social media platforms want it. And increasingly, AI systems stand between you and the information you’re looking for. But attention is finite. In this episode of UnSpun, Amanda Sturgill examines the attention economy and what decades of research can tell us about who gets our attention—and what they can do with it for...

What happens when censorship stops looking like censorship? In this episode of  UnSpun journal club, DrSturg looks at the book  The New Censorship: How the War on the Media Is Taking Us Down, which looks at how populist authoritains harm journalism without controlling the press by using society's norms against it. These leaders are all over the world, but have in common a view of a society spl...

Christian nationalists think their country and their God are related, and they've built a media ecosystem to spread their beliefs. Agreeing with this changes how they understand facts, what they support and even some of what they do. In this week of UnSpun, DrSturg breaks down some of the research on Christian nationalists and the media. LINKS NPR piece on the Dilley Meme Team Original video,...

You probably saw some news today. But did you choose it? Or did it simply find you? In this episode of  UnSpun , DrSturg looks at research examining how people experience news in everyday life—and why that experience differs depending on how much money you have and how educated you are. The industry needs to look at audiences differently, and the implications for democracy are profound. LINKS Pape...

Why does an influencer you've never met sometimes feel like a friend? In this episode of  UnSpun , DrSturg looks at the psychology behind parasocial relationships — the one-sided relationships audiences can develop with influencers, creators, streamers, and other public figures. We’ll look at how influencers create a sense of intimacy and how those relationships can make advertising more persu...

It's harder to get quality information on science that affects your health and life. Dr. Sturg interviews science communicator and neuroscientist Dr. Ben Rein on how researchers with media skills can make a difference. PLUS, People rely on some bad cues for how to make choices, and sometimes newsmakers don't help. In this episode, learn why "we've always done it this way" can b...

How can we be drowning in information and at the same time, badly informed? In this week's UnSpun, DrSturg breaks down the relationship of journalism and democracy. Journalism came first, and democracy wouldn't exist without it. But today, journalism is struggling and around the world, democracy is struggling right along with it. Find out how the relationship works, why it's failing an...

Who really controls the news? And what happens when it's the wealthy? In this UnSpun , rewind, Dr. Sturg explores the role of the press in an oligarchy, which is where a small, powerful elite shapes public perception through media ownership, restricted access, and censorship. From billionaire-backed news outlets to state-controlled media, learn how information is manipulated and some things jo...

On this week's UnSpun, DrSturg explores why authoritarian governments target the press and educational institutions, and how these tactics are appearing in democracies worldwide: Why authoritarian governments restrict press freedom: Common tactics of information control: The consequences of information control: Ways to overcome the censorship Resources mentioned: Survey:  http://bit.ly/UnSpunS...

There was a secret playbook for destroying governments and newsmakers use some of the same tactics on YOU right now. What if the chaos in your government isn't an accident? In 1944, the OSS (now the CIA) wrote a classified manual teaching resistance fighters how to dismantle a Nazi occupation from within. Today, those same tactics are being used by governments, politicians and would-be authori...

America has more news shows than ever, but somehow, we have less information. In this episode of  UnSpun Journal Club , DrSturg looks as new research analyzing more than fifty years of American broadcast television news. Researchers found that advertising has expanded while substantive public-interest reporting has steadily declined. She also looks at how political rhetoric shapes public perceptio...

Quality journalism costs money while misinformation is usualy free? But most quality news is behind a paywall and few people want to pay. In this episode of  UnSpun , DrSturg traces the history of the news paywall from the early days of online newspapers to today's subscription economy and examines what decades of research tell us about who pays, who doesn't, and what that means for public...

Can artificial intelligence help stop misinformation—or could it quietly make the problem worse? In this episode of  UnSpun Journal Club , check out new research on whether communication managers trust AI fact-checking tools and what happens when humans remain "in the loop." Follow Dr. Sturg BlueSky - Prof. Amanda Sturgill (@DrSturg) Websites - Sturg says | Unspun’s Substack Questions and...

What happens when secretive religious movements intersect with politics? In this episode of Unseen, Dr. Sturg begins with the present: recent reporting on Tulsi Gabbard and the Science of Identity Foundation before tracing the fascinating history of journalists covering new religious movements from the 1930s to today and on multiple continents. She has aliens, telepathy and a wild story about how...

If you repeat a lie enough, people may start to believe it. This idea of the big lie has been around for a while, but the last 8 years it has been so bad that fact checkers had to create a whole new rating level for how bad the lying is. Dr. Sturg breaks down the history of the big lie and shows how surrogates and supporters help to spread it.  In the interview, author and professor Dr. Jen Mercie...

Why is your grandma convinced that the news thinks she's mean or ignorant? In this week's episode of the UnSpun journal club, DrSturg looks at a study on folk theories of media bias. For the respondents in this story, bias was about more than just acts. facts. It was about representation, language, identity and whether people felt like journalists welcomed their perspectives. And the study...

Is the media actually biased? Or do we just think it is? In this episode of  UnSpun , DrSturg examines decades of research on media bias, political polarization, cable news and the psychology of news consumption. From Fox News and CNN to newspapers, social media and more, she explores what researchers have found about bias in news coverage and how people on opposite sides of an issue can see the s...

This week's paper, from Sweden, answers an important question: when politicians dogwhistle racism, can it make them MORE popular? In this episode, DrSturg breaks down clearly what a dog whistle is and the clever way this paper studied the matter. She ends with advice on what YOU can do to not fall victim and a message for journalists. Here is the original paper . DrSturg's book, Detecting...

This week is Stephen Colbert’s final on CBS, and it's part of a larger story behind modern media: consolidation. When a few companies own more of the places you get information, it affects how much corruption there is, how much you know about yourself and your neighbors and the fabric of society itself. So much of the information we get now feels overwhelming but strangely thin. You'll lea...

In this UnSpun Journal Club episode, Dr Sturg looks at a recent paper on what malicious AI swarms could mean for democracy, public debate, and social media itself. They could borrow from the older playbook of harassment and sealioning, made worse as agentic AI systems can imitate people, flood conversations, and manufacture the appearance of consensus. The question is not just whether AI can gener...