My professor gave a lecture on Fake News & I can’t tell if he’s kidding

Looks like Marino’s chili pepper is abit out of date

Jan. 30. Class-notes. (sort of) lecture by my prof Mark “Coach” Marino.

[Note, I am a neuro-bio-com major investigating my action potential by depolorizing, or maybe deplorizing, the world of journullism as I audit this class on fake news — meaning I know a bit about science but don’t always get the Lib Arts references & in-jokes.]

Here are my notes from this lecture on Fake News from a “class” I’m taking. I have to admit, I’m not really sure if these profs are serious or not. This is part of a “class” I’m “taking” as part of UnderAcademy “College,” and I’m getting real tired of using “air quotes.”

Coach asked if I’d post these notes here. Well it went something like this:

Coach: Hey, Clish, there’s a long tradition of students publishing the cribbed lecture notes of their professors.
Me: Oh, yeah? Like who?
Coach: Well, take the words of Socrates as written by Plato.
Me: [scribbling illegible as I try to stop laughing.]

*****************************************************************

Class notes….
Coach strolls in 15 minutes late, shirt disheveled. Chalk and avacado? stains on pants.

Today’s lesson: What is Fake News?

I. Fake News = Populist Propaganda

Propaganda is a form of communication via the manipulation of news. Began: 10,000 BCE: with headline: Deluge Alarmists Raise Rain Hysteria. Later: “Mystery Plague spread by exposure to Italian poetry.”
Later: “Amerigo Vespucci Sends Doctored Postcards During Staged Circum-naive-igation of the Flat.”
Even Later: “Nazis Inaccurately Being Branded Nazis.”

fake news ≠ Fake News

Fake News → stories that are made up are not the same as
fake News → stories that are exaggerated or
fake NEWS→ stories with inaccuracies
FAKE news→ stories meant to be ironic….

IS he making this up? Is this comedy? I can’t tell when this guy is joking.

Sum peepz has questions….

?: Can anyone do propaganda?
A: No, propaganda is a thing government’s do.
?: But why? Isn’t all communication a form of propaganda?
A: Listen, little Derrida, I’m asking the questions here. Propaganda is like racism. It can be only be employed by a propagandist.
?: Why? is racism only racism when racists use it?
A: I think so…Don’t you?
?: We’re the students. We’re asking the questions.
A: Was that even a question?
?: Was that even an answer?
A: Touché.

Popular Propaganda

I swear Humanities profs get to just make shit up!

Popular Propaganda=Different from traditional propaganda because now the people — average joes (in contrast with Trader Joe’s??)— & the news media outlets have access to same fidelity and distribution channels. In the past, you couldn’t easily make a TV news show in your basement that your cousins would watch without making fun of your cow licks.

Sidebar: When Coach was a kid, apparently he used to make a TV show with his cousins called — stop locking me in the Intensive Care room — which is what they called the downstairs bathroom….okay, I don’t think I need to write down any more of this.

more questions from da peepz

?: If it’s popular is it still propaganda?
(I’m pretty sure hez already answered this ? above. And I can see hez starting to get a little irritated. It’s kind of cute, but is taking the form of stammering)
A: YEZZZ. Tha-that’s what I’ve been trying to-to-to tell you!

Fidelity. Fidelity. Fidelity.
This word has not been defined.

Fidelity? Fidel castro? Fidelity Insurance? Fido luvs Fidelus?

***********Yes, he remembered! Baby CARROTS!!!**************

Trumpaganda= Donald Trump’s little tweeting form of propaganda

Fake News = Boomerang tactic.

Using Boomerang Tactics:

The administration throws out the term as a weapon to attack the Mainstream Media and destabilize the traditional fourth estate, and then it comes back and hits him in the face.

?: What are the other estates and do they have estate sales?
A: Very funny, Dr. Memmott.

Could’ve sworn he just said Papa-ganda. Papadopolis. Papa don’t preach.

Psi-Phi party tonite:
Madam Curie themed.
Costume= labcoats with French ruffles (check!)
Drinks: Radiated Rum Punch
not → Kappa Alpha Kapa Rape Rum (remember last time)
Wearing FLATS not heels.
Don’t invite Rho Rho Rhos Girls
Officially: No-Haux-Gaugh

Need to remember not to talk too much about chemistry as there will be many BIO gals there!

Class is DRAGGGING!

I think he just said deconstruction and is now staring off into space.

it’s been minutes.

Habermas Hablamos

Adorno. Adorko. Adored, no? Donny Darko…the rabbit.

Public Spheres… sounds like Buckyballs or molecules or olfactory glomerulus (see drawing) — a global tangle of axons…..Oh, NOs my neuro-notes and my fake news notes are colliding! Still I wonder if they knew anything about science they could say: public sphere = glomerulus….

the glial cells would be like the fact-checkers, or maybe the Internet….

Real Journalists would be like a tufted cell — projection cell, sending messages from the glomerulus to the brain — the savvy fakenews reader?

Maux Questions: Kid with the faux hawk asks:

? Is Fake News Propaganda if it’s satire.
A: Okay, — yes, except when it’s not.

Hmm. Okay. Lib. Arts. They can say whatever they’d like, whenever they’d like. For as LONG as they’d like. Tick tock.

Some Fake News is okay, some Fake News is not (he’s playing with where he puts the emphasis.) Marino seems to consider Fake News to be more problematic specifically when it’s not funny.

More ?????

?: DO we have to stay in class if there’s a fire.
A: Why?
?: There’s a fire.
A: Really?
?: Yep.
A: Class dismissed.