Italy in the Age of Fake News: Media, Populism and Disinformation in global Perspective

The role of 'fake news' in shaping the information ecosystem can be hardly underestimated. While debates about fake news tends to be framed around the U.S. national context, the goal of this class is to answer the question: 'what is disinformation?' by using Italy as a case study. The strong presence of populist movements and Italy's complex media ecosystem makes it an important laboratory to understand how disinformation rises and spreads in a specific social context. While this class will focus on media and disinformation in Italy, it will also analyze how this disinformation is deeply intertwined with related discourses and practices in other countries and languages.