In April of this year, Jon Roozenbeek and Sander van der Linden published a book entitled The Psychology of Misinformation with the Cambridge University Press. It is short, lucid and one-eyed – despite having two authors. Since this book is state-of-the-art on the ‘misinformation’ front I thought I’d bring a sceptical pair of eyes to bear on it. They say they like scepticism, within limits. So I thought I’d try the unlimited sort.
The book is academic. It pretends to objectivity. It is polite and reasonable and ‘evidenced’, and sometimes facetious in a way that is meant to be charming. But it is one of those devilish books which does the opposite of what it claims to do. It claims to be understanding and hence opposing misinformation: in fact, it is a contribution to the making of a misinformation society. Now, I am not a psychologist. Usually, academic book reviews are written by fellow scholars, members of the same “echo chamber” (to use words used by our authors), subject to the same “filter bubbles” (to use other words they use). But I’d like to see a revival of 19th-century book reviewing, in which anyone can wade in on anything and smite it with a stave or impale it on a hook. This is one such short attempt.
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