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From urban legends to political fact-checking : online scrutiny in America, 1990-2015
Aspray W., Cortada J., Springer International Publishing, New York, NY, 2019. 146 pp. Type: Book (978-3-030229-51-1)
Date Reviewed: Jan 21 2020

In this fascinating five-chapter book, the authors discuss the history of online scrutiny in the US from 1990 to 2015. They review some basic frameworks of online communication; examine the role of online platforms such as Usenet and the World Wide Web (WWW) in urban legends and political fact checking; and study how major events (the September 11 attacks, presidential elections) impact and are impacted by online communications.

The book starts with the practice of online scrutiny and its key features. Some advantages of online communication, of which online scrutiny is one type, include flexibility in time and place, documented content, having a community, and choice of participation format, among others. On the other hand, online communications present some challenges, including no physical cues in the communication, information overload, time lag, and isolation. Regardless, online communication is a critical component of modern-day life. In particular, online scrutiny is widely accepted and practiced in many aspects of our lives today. As quoted by the authors, Craig Silverman “state[s] the obvious: that the Internet made scrutiny (in particular, fact checking) easier, that the public was doing it, not just professional fact checkers, and that readers and users are no longer ‘passive consumers of information.’”

Though fact checking has a long history, online scrutiny started when the Internet became accessible to the masses around 1990. In the earlier days, people used Usenet news groups as a public forum for the discussion and dissemination of information. Chapter 2 discusses political fact checking, using the example of a particular Usenet group, alt.folklore.urban (AFU). While Usenet groups such as AFU used pure text in communication because of the technology limitation at the time, when the WWW came to life in 1991, a couple of core players in AFU created Snopes (https://www.snopes.com/) around 1995 for a similar purpose to AFU but on a more powerful platform.

The authors of the book examine the roles these two groups have played in political fact checking. Chapters 3 and 5 concentrate on how fact checking played out in two important events in US history: the 9/11 attacks, and the 2008 and 2016 presidential elections. A number of rumors and how they were spread, fact checked, and debunked by the online community are discussed in detail. Chapter 4, “Debunking as Hobby, Entertainment, Scholarly Pursuit, and Public Service,” studies the issue of online scrutiny in a larger context. The chapter reviews some historic service providers and the online communities facilitated by these providers, from the likes of Source, CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online (AOL), and their web-based siblings such as About.com. As the title of the chapter suggests, these online service providers gave the public platforms that can be used for debunking or scrutiny for different types of fact checking. These platforms also serve scholarly pursuits “by sociologists, anthropologists, and library and information scholars.”

The subject discussed in the book, while maybe not complete, is extremely important in today’s world of politics and everyday life. Readers can see how social media such as Twitter and Facebook play very influential roles in shaping political events such as presidential elections. Examining the issue of fact checking from a historical point of view reminds us how the online world can be used to disseminate both accurate information and fake news that affects our politics and our lives. We should learn the lessons from our past.

Reviewer:  Xiannong Meng Review #: CR146847 (2006-0129)
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