MIRROR 1.29.20
MIRROR ASKS 2
DUCK SYNDROME 4-5
Q&A WITH JOHN CAREY 7 SAMANTHA BURACK/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
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Editors’ Note
STORY
DIVYA KOPALLE/THE DARTMOUTH SENIOR STAFF
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Snapchat, WhatsApp and more — with the multitude of social media platforms that exist, we have access to endless streams of information with the click of a button. We also have the ability to share that information with anyone we’re connected to — whether that be thousands of followers or just a handful of close friends. With that power comes responsibility; the knowledge we perpetuate can have a widespread impact, both positive and negative. In the age of fake news and biased reporting, it’s just as easy to mislead others as it is to be misinformed yourself. For this week’s Mirror, we explore topics related to the dissemination of false information. We reflect on the dreaded “Duck Syndrome,” examine the ways in which Dartmouth students stay informed and speak with a government professor about conspiracy theories. We also ask the Mirror staff questions related to misinformation to get their perspective on the issue. So whether you’re a die-hard newspaper reader or you like to get your daily headlines from Twitter, we would all do well to recognize that we are also susceptible to mispercieving fact for fiction. But by exploring the potential subjectivity or bias of information, we can develop a more well-rounded perception of the events around us.
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1.29.20 VOL. CLXXVI NO. 124 EDITOR-IN-CHIEF DEBORA HYEMIN HAN PUBLISHER AIDAN SHEINBERG MIRROR EDITORS KYLEE SIBILIA NOVI ZHUKOVSKY COPY EDITOR JULIAN NATHAN ISSUE LAYOUT GRANT PINKSTON
By The Mirror Staff
Do you believe in any legends or myths? Christina Baris ’22: I’m extremely gullible. My brother once convinced me that the Eiffel Tower was moved to Florida (I was seven, though). I also believe in aliens, for sure. Anne Johnakin ’23: I don’t think so. I can appreciate them as stories, but I don’t put much stock in myths. George Gerber ’23: I so desperately want the Loch Ness Monster to be real. Nessie, I know you’re out there... Angelina Scarlotta ’23: I personally don’t believe in any. However, this town a couple over from mine is nationally known as a habitat for Bigfoot, so I’ve kind of grown up around them. Sophie Bailey ’22: I’m a spiritual person. I believe in existence beyond life and death, and some creatures that fall in between. Elizabeth Whiting ’21: I probably believe in plenty of urban myths and legends, but I’m not even aware that they’re legends or myths, so I’ll have to get back to you as I learn about them. What, in your opinion, constitutes “fake news?” CB: Anything that is fabricated, poorly researched or inherently biased. AJ: I think there’s a big difference between fake news and news that is biased or news that you don’t like. Fake news is created with malicious intent to misinform and manipulate its readers. AS: “Fake news” constitutes any piece of journalism that is not the truth. I think “fake news” often is conflated with biased news, and it should be clear that they are not the same. One is blatantly a lie, and the other is the truth skewed to a certain audience. SB: Intentional reporting so as to skew factual events or quotes and present them as fact in a manner that
is decontextualized all the way to baldfaced lying. Presenting opinion as fact. EW: Fake news is news that diverges from the truth or misportrays things to benefit an agenda. I feel like often fake news comes in the form of gossip or hearsay. Fake news can also be news so rife with bias that it poorly conveys true events or circumstances. Do you think political polarization is a problem? CB: I think that it becomes an issue when people refuse to even listen to those with different opinions. AJ: Definitely. I think one of the main issues it causes is an unwillingness to have a conversation with the other side. If you discount another party how will anything ever get done? GG: Definitely. Today it seems that just about everything is a polarized issue. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t see many compromises anymore, and many voters aren’t thinking for themselves. AS: Political polarization is a clear issue in U.S. politics. The parties are so focused on their disagreements that they hardly consider the subjects on which they agree. SB: Yes. I’m certainly resolute in my beliefs that I am sure not everyone shares, but there can be no productive effort made within the government without collaboration, much less compromise. EW: Absolutely. I think politics currently depends more on party affiliation than on actual quality of character of political figures. I feel political parties have more power by mere association than any other element of government. Political polarization is absolutely a problem. Neither party is pure evil. The only way we learn is by carefully and patiently discussing political topics, not through essentializing political parties to antagonize one another.
How important is the truth to you? CB: An ugly truth is always better than a pretty lie, in my opinion. AJ: The truth is very important to me. I seek out honesty all the time, whether it be in my relationships, the news I consume or anything else in my life. GG: Definitely. Today, it seems that just about everything is a polarized issue. It’s gotten so bad that I don’t see many compromises anymore, and many voters aren’t thinking for themselves. SB: Essentially important. When everyone’s experiences and perspectives skew their judgement, being able to rely on something concrete and real is essential to grounding our lives in reality. EW: The truth is important to me, but as my friend once said, “Everybody has their own truth.” Because we perceive everything through our own experiences, every truth we know is subjective. I try to understand and recognize my own truth as it relates to the truths of others. Hopefully that’s not too meta. How often do you read the news? CB: I get push notifications from news apps, so I’d say daily. AJ: Pretty much every day. If I’m not reading the news, I’m at least scrolling on Twitter to find out what’s going on. GG: I’ll take a peek when a headline pops up on my phone, but not much more than that. AS: I get the New York Times Morning Briefing in my inbox every morning, so I read that. If there are bigger stories going on, I’ll follow those more closely. SB: At least once every other day. The number of articles I read depends on how much I have going on or what’s going on in the world. EW: I read an article or two from the newspaper every day, but often the articles don’t really constitute real news.
Your Mind in the Digital Age GRAPHIC
By Grace Qu
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Duck Syndrome: What's Beneath the Water 4// MIRR OR
STORY
By George Gerber
I am a self-proclaimed Duck Syndrome is also a twoperfectionist. I push myself to my way street — I simultaneously look limits to get good grades, be in every around and see “perfect” students organization and keep up those acing classes, playing sports and #squadgoals. having lot of In the era of "When you are friends. I often social media feel inferior and Instagram, struggling, it's easier because I know we are able to to look around and how hard I’m project a fake working and see the flawless side image of who struggling while we want to be of everyone and see t h ey s e e m t o rather than who how effortless it is for b e c o a s t i n g. we actually are. However, deep S t r i v i n g f o r them. When you're d ow n I k n ow p e r f e c t i o n i s m having a bad day, it that ever yone goes beyond struggles at can make it more social media, some point and t h o u g h , a n d extreme." getting through students put Dartmouth isn’t up a front that just a breeze. e v e r y t h i n g i s -ISABELLA DUNBAR '23 “so wonderful” According to when, in reality, Student Wellness many of us are just trying to get Center director Caitlin Barthelmes, through the week. Duck Syndrome is a concept that Enter Duck Syndrome. Duck affects many Dartmouth students. Syndrome refers to that image of While Duck Syndrome is not a duck we see effortlessly gliding a formal diagnosis, it can still across the water. However, what we affect a student’s wellbeing. When can’t see is that, students have under the water, misperceptions that same duck "I wondered if the about the i s f e ro c i o u s l y admissions committee realities of their paddling to peers’ behaviors, had made a mistake, m a i n t a i n their decisions i t s g r a c e f u l and part of trying to and behaviors appearance. show to everyone that c a n e a s i l y I suppose I be affected, suffer from Duck I really belonged was according to Syndrome. On working very, very Barthelmes. the outside, I “When hard and pretending try to be happy it comes to a n d b a l a n c e that I wasn't working something academics, sleep hard at all." like feeling as and maintain an if everyone active social life. else is having Still, there aren’t -GYAN MOORTHY '20 no challenges enough hour s or transitions in a day, and I or stress, it often find myself could cause the pulling all-nighters and struggling feelings of isolation or lack of to get everything done. However, belonging, and we know that those most people only see me from two things can be associated with the water-up — gliding through a decrease in mental health or my week, seemingly without any increases in stress and not great worries. wellbeing,” Barthelmes said.
Isabella Dunbar ’23 is involved their health, such as losing sleep to belonged was working very, very in many organizations on campus get everything done, many students hard and pretending that I wasn’t and says she enjoys being busy. deploy healthier strategies like working hard at all,” Moorthy said. On the outside, she appears to connecting with others or getting Moorthy joined many be a successful and accomplished some much-needed rest. ex t r a c u r r i c u l a r s a n d q u i c k l y student, but became a T.A. According to him, in fact, she is "I feel a little bit of Barthelmes said he pressured himself into taking very open about s h e b e l i e v e s on more and more responsibilities, shame because it her strug g les. t h a t m a k i n g projecting the image that he was A c c o r d i n g t o perpetuates this i n t e n t i o n a l able to balance his work load. her, she feels culture that pushes choices about However, Moorthy said he regrets lucky that she what will serve his actions because they helped doesn’t pressure people to take on too your wellbeing is perpetuate the phenomenon of herself to appear much. As someone a good compass Duck Syndrome. perfect and isn’t “I feel a little bit of shame comes to campus, they taoc t bi oans es yoo un r, because afraid to share it perpetuates this culture her real feelings. feel overwhelmed rather than what that pushes people to take on However, while by coursework, and you think you too much. As someone comes to she understands should be doing campus, they feel overwhelmed by t h a t t h e r e ’ s when they see that or what others coursework, and when they see that probably a lot no one else appears are doing. no one else appears overwhelmed going on in B u t by their coursework, they feel even overwhelmed by their what do people more alienated,” Moorthy said. p e o p l e ’s l i ve s that she doesn’t coursework, they feel who used to have Barthelmes said that she often know about, she even more alienated." Duck Syndrome hears students wanting to change said it’s easy to think about it the narrative of Duck Syndrome, look at people now? much like Moorthy. To change w h o s e e m t o -GYAN MOORTHY '20 G y a n that story, she said we need to be have everything M o o r t h y ’ 2 0 more honest and upfront with each figured out and reflected on his other by recognizing our emotions feel bad about struggles with and effectively expressing those herself. Duck Syndrome and how it impacted emotions. “I know when I’m having a bad him earlier in his Dartmouth “I think it’s really important for day, I look less put together, so it e x p e r i e n c e . students to hear throws me off if I see someone M o o r t hy s a i d the message that that is put together,” Dunbar said. that he didn't "I think the more that eve r y s t u d e n t “When you are struggling, it’s c o m e f r o m Dartmouth and all of at Dartmouth easier to look around and see the a n a t i o n a l l y b e l o n g s h e re, flawless side of everyone and see r a n k e d h i g h us can really foster t h at t h ey a re how effortless it is for them. When school, didn’t community building all extremely you’re having a bad day, it can make publish in a top v a l u a b l e and connection with it more extreme.” research journal members of this However, just because someone a n d d i d n ’ t each other – I think community, have sees other people doing well doesn’t e s t a b l i s h a ny that's one way to earned their necessarily mean they are suffering global charities. way here and from Duck Syndrome. According to He said he felt counteract Duck belong here,” Dunbar, Duck Syndrome doesn’t o u t o f p l a c e Syndrome." Barthelmes said. really affect her because she found a on campus and “I think the more community of people that is willing needed to find that Dartmouth to share their real feelings, so she a way to justify -CAITLIN BARTHELMES, and all of us doesn’t get stressed out about it. his acceptance STUDENT WELNESS can really foster Dunbar’s experience matches to Dartmouth. community wh at B a r t h e l m e s s a i d a b o u t “I wondered CENTER DIRECTOR building and students’ varied reactions to if the admissions connection with struggling. Barthelmes said that committee had each other — I while some students may make made a mistake, and part of trying think that’s one way to counteract decisions that negatively impact to show to everyone that I really Duck Syndrome.”
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ZOE CHEN/THE DARTMOUTH
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Facts, Fiction and Inconvenience STORY
By Anne Johnakin
In the age of social media, the in this country and the world for the way young people consume media last X number of years,” Jetter said. is changing quickly. In a study “Otherwise, you have no context done by the Pew Research Center, and it doesn’t make sense. It’s not only 16 percent of American 18-to just that I want people to keep up 29-year-olds said they often get their on the news; I think people should news from TV. Not surprisingly, 36 delve into the recent and deep past.” percent said they often get their news Other than history, Jetter noted from social media and 27 percent the importance of recognizing the said they often get their news from relationships between stories and the news websites. patterns that emerge among them. Although young adults have With this, she said her hope is that many platforms to consume news, students will form a well-informed how informed they actually stay worldview and join the national varies. Philip Surendran ’23 said he dialogue. uses Twitter as his main platform “I don’t just want people to keep for news and makes sure to follow a up with the news, because that’s sort wide variety of reporters and news of one-dimensional,” Jetter said. sources to get a diverse array of “I want them to be interested in news. He said following journalists the story behind the story. And the themselves is important because he story behind that. The characters, finds them to be a more credible personalities and relationships. source of information. Everything is connected. I think “When it’s directly from the that’s what I enjoy and try to share reporter or directly from an in class.” individual, that seems to be more One of the main concerns with trustworthy than the spin that getting news from social media, newspapers put on it,” Surendran though, is fake news. A study done said. “Newspapers have a little too by Northeastern University that much power in how they present surveyed nearly 6,000 students from things to the world, and it’s good 11 U.S. colleges and universities to s ee th in gs found the way unfiltered, students interact which I think “Newspapers have a with news has s o c i a l m e d i a little too much power ch a n g e d w i t h allows you to the uptick in in how they present do.” “fake news.” English and things to the world, 36 percent women’s, gender and it’s good to see of students and sexulaity surveyed in studies professor things unfiltered, the study said Alexis Jetter, who which I think social that the threat teaches ENGL of “fake news” 6: “Nar rative media allows you to had led them J o u r n a l i s m : do.” to distrust the Literature and credibility of all Practice,” said news. And 45 she encourages -PHILIP SURENDRAN ’23 percent of the students to read students said that the news and they did not have stay up to date with what is going confidence in their ability to discern on. More than that, though, Jetter “real news” from “fake news.” emphasized the need for context for Jetter said, however, that it the news. is important that we distinguish “To understand the news, you between fake news and inconvenient have to know what’s been happening news. Inconvenient news, she said, is
LILA HOVEY/THE DARTMOUTH STAFF
called fake by people in power when they are called out by journalists. Jetter pointed to the George Orwell quote, “If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.” Then, of course, there is actual fake news, created to misinform people. Some people’s response to this kind of news, Jetter said, is to think all news is fake. “ Pe o p l e a r e l a z y, my s e l f included,” Jetter says, “People adopt this skepticism that’s really not skepticism at all; it’s laziness in saying ‘Well none of this is true, it’s all lies. It’s not worth my time to get informed because I know what I need to know.’” Another response to fake news is to become your own fact-checker and triangulate the sources you take in. According to Pew Research Center, around 78 percent of American adults said the issue of made-up news and information has led them to check the facts of news stories themselves.
Arnold Fuentes ’23, a student in responsible citizen, both they and Jetter’s first-year seminar, WGSS Jetter said they sometimes find it 7.04, “Women in Journalism,” said difficult to read the news because of he spends four to five hours per its overall negativity and tendency day reading to focus on tragedy. the news and “I feel like a lot of H o w e v e r, t h e makes sure to benefits ultimately fact check the people consider outweigh the costs news he reads. outlets within social for Jetter. “I feel like “The same things media to be 100 a lot of people that make me c o n s i d e r percent credible really care about outlets within news. It could be, but these stories and social media to these people makes be 100 percent I don’t think it’s safe it impossible for c r e d i b l e to assume something me to read stuff,” news,” Fuentes Jetter said. “I do on Facebook is 100 said, “It could feel a responsibility be, but I don’t percent accurate.” to know what’s think it’s safe going on, because to assume if you don’t know something on -ARNOLD FUENTES ’23 what’s going on, Facebook is how can you do 100 percent anything about it? accurate.” If you want to make change in While Surendran and Fuentes this world, if you want to fight the agree that staying up to date is forces of cruelty and ignorance and an important part of being a bigotry, you have to know what’s
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Q&A With Government Professor John Carey Q&A
By Cristian Cano
Government professor John Carey is associate dean of faculty, and his research has spanned topics like American democracy, campus diversity and conspiracy theories. This week, The Dartmouth sat down with Carey to learn more about his work on conspiracy theories, which includes how they affect perceptions of the Zika virus in Brazil, politics in Venezuela and even the 2014 Deflategate scandal right here in the United States. I noticed that conspiracy theories are a part of your research, but they’re a fairly small part compared to a much more extensive list of publications. So I’m curious: Why conspiracy theories, among everything else that you do? JC: I spent most of my career studying elections, and really, the rules of elections, the design of electoral systems. Most of my work has been in Latin America, not in the United States, and mostly not studying political opinion and public beliefs. But partly through hanging out with Professor Nyhan, and partly by spending my time watching elections and studying them, the problem of conspiracy theories has just grown. Conspiracy theories are becoming more central to elections and electoral competitions. So as that’s happened, my interests have flowed into that area. Being mainly focused on Latin American politics, I realized that there was almost no scholarship being done on misconceptions and conspiracy beliefs in that part of the world. People in other parts of the world, including the Middle East and Europe, have paid quite a bit of attention to this. In Latin America, almost nobody was studying it. But there are plenty of conspiracy theories floating around in Latin America, and they matter politically. So, I saw an opportunity. I was hoping to make something of a contribution there. I’m glad you brought that up, because I saw that you’ve done research in Brazil and Venezuela.
There were some crazy numbers: According to one of your published papers, 54 percent of people believe in one of the three major conspiracy theories you examined. Focusing on South America is an interesting choice because, from what I’ve heard, it’s definitely less represented. JC: The Venezuelan case is interesting because there are a bunch of things that became conventional wisdom about conspiracy theories, based on the studies that we had in Europe and the United States. One of them was that conspiracy theories are for people who are outside of government and disempowered. But really, what is a conspiracy theory? It’s a belief that there are some invisible forces that we can’t necessarily identify or observe, but they’re controlling things and doing bad stuff to us. In politics, they’re pursuing policy that’s against the interests of the broad set of people. It’s natural to think that those kinds of theories will appeal more to people who are outside of government power. They’re the ones who feel that things are being done to them. But in Venezuela, it’s interesting because while there is conspiracy theory belief on both sides, it’s much more prevalent among supporters of the government. It’s actually advocated by the government. That was one way in which, at least in Venezuela, conspiracy theories seemed to be following different rules. There were also arguments that conspiracy theories are going to appeal more to conservatives than progressives — and again, that doesn’t seem to line up with what we see in Venezuela. Are there any other countries or regions that, like South America, are seriously lacking in that kind of conspiracy theory scholarship? JC: To study conspiracy theory beliefs requires you to measure public opinion. You want to know how widespread they are in the broad population. We’re moving forward in public opinion research all over the world now. There
are new technologies that have allowed for that to happen, the internet being one, people’s access to cell phones and so forth. If you went back 20 years, when almost all public opinion polling was done by calling people up on landlines, there were big parts of the world where most houses didn’t have a landline. We knew very little about public opinion in those places. In the most recent 20 years, landlines have become basically useless for doing public opinion polling because nobody answers them anymore. They’ve been replaced by other technologies that have kind of flattened the geography of public opinion polling. So now, public opinion polling faces all kinds of challenges, but they’re kind of similar in almost all parts of the world. It’s still hard to get a representative sample because everybody’s overpolled. Everybody can be exposed to polls in a million different ways, so they get exhausted from them, so then the challenge is: Can you know with confidence that the group of people that you get responding to something is representative of the broader population? But the good news is, that problem is much more similar from country to country than it used to be 20 years ago. When I was looking at your previous publications, I saw a lot of politics, but then I saw a paper about Deflategate. That stood out to me because it was notably “less political,” or at least not blatantly political. Could you comment on those “less political” theories? JC: One of the problems when we study conspiracy theories in politics is that you might have a bunch of conspiracy theories — and maybe you get a good representative survey, you pay for it, you ask a bunch of Democrats and Republicans and Independents if they believe in these things. It might well be that Republicans have a higher belief, or maybe Democrats have a higher belief. Whatever you find, you don’t really know if certain kinds of people are funneling into one party or the other, and it’s not so much about the theories as it is people who have selected into those
sets. That’s a perpetual problem that we’re always looking for ways to solve. People don’t tend to select into being a Patriots fan or a Jets fan. Some people do, but for 95 percent of those folks, it’s just where you’re born. It’s much more randomly assigned than political partisanship is, so we were able to use belief in Deflategate. People are either going to know every detail of this conspiracy theory, or they’re going to never have heard of it. We were interested in trying to figure out to what extent people’s arbitrary Patriots fandom or non-Patriots fandom affected the way they processed additional information about these theories. So, using sports was really just a randomization mechanism for us. What we showed is what you’d probably expect: that Patriots fans were highly motivated to digest certain types of information about Deflategate, and people who were on the other side of the fence were highly motivated and highly receptive to other types of information. It wasn’t groundbreaking research, but it was a way to get at a familiar question from a different route. Is there anything you think more students or the community should know about this topic? JC: One of the general beliefs about conspiracy theories is that people are misinformed because they don’t have enough information, and if we get them more information, they’ll correct their misperceptions. The more we study conspiracy theories, we realize that a lot of times, it’s not that misperceptions are more prevalent among people who lack information. Sometimes it’s quite the opposite, sometimes misperceptions are strongest among the most heavily informed. Part of that is that people select their information. They gather and retain information selectively, based maybe on what’s more congenial to their predispositions. One of the things that means is that it’s not just increasing the volume of information that’s out there. If you want to try to correct misperceptions, it’s really important to think about sources of information
and where it’s validated from. One of the studies that you didn’t ask about was a study that we did in Brazil on the Zika epidemic. There were a lot of misconceptions about how you could contract Zika and its connection to microcephaly. So, the Brazilian government, the World Health Organization and the PanAmerican Health Organization all wanted to basically correct a bunch of these misperceptions because they figured getting the right information out there to Brazilian citizens was going to make them better able to protect themselves against this epidemic. Sometimes they were basically trying to take the misperceptions head on, saying “You might think Zika is caused by genetically-modified mosquitos, but it’s not.” Or, “You might think that microcephaly is coming from vaccines, but it’s not.” They were basically trying to rebut the misperceptions. The discouraging thing about our research is, we found that the rebuttal strategy actually was undermining people’s baseline public health knowledge about all kinds of other things. One of the things that we were not able to do in that research, but that I’d like to do next, would be to try to figure out, does it matter if the source of the information varies? We were testing the effectiveness of these messages that were coming from the government’s public health ministry. Would those messages have been more effective if they had come from a local NGO or some other, more trusted source of information closer to the recipient? I know that’s a long way to come back to your question, but one of the things I think we really need to be focusing on right now is not necessarily the volume of information that’s out there, but the sources of it. People tend to be very skeptical about information that’s coming from other sources. We need to think about how we break through those bubbles and communicate even to audiences outside of our own immediate set of connections. This article has been edited and condensed for clarity and length.
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Expression and Proliferation PHOTO
By Naina Bhalla and Bowen Chen