About This Project

SEEING IS BELIEVING

This site represents the capstone project for my Master of Arts degree in Communication & Leadership Studies from Gonzaga University. I have spent the last year focusing on the spread of disinformation on social media as part of my digital media strategies concentration.

Along the way, I have spoken to fake news creators, fact-checkers, experts, scholars, and political pundits about the role fake news played in the 2016 presidential election. We discussed the concerns over how trolls in Russia, China — even here in the United States — could try to affect the outcome in 2020.

From the outset, I was intrigued about whether disinformation on social media may have helped sway undecided voters to help elect Donald Trump as president. I read many scholarly studies and some outstanding books on the subject, and they did not always agree about that conclusion. However, one noted scholar, Kathleen Hall Jamieson, does infer, based on an exhaustive analysis, that Russian trolls and hackers helped elect the 45th president.

That led me to wonder how it is that people believe what they see and read online. Why do many of us prefer getting our news from partisan cheerleaders over fact-based content? When did the truth become politicized? Finally, in the face of overwhelming evidence of falsehoods, why is seeing still believing when it comes to dubious online claims?

For my final project, I shot and edited several short digital explainer videos on a host of topics related to these concerns. I hope that they are shared on social media and help shed light on these critical issues. In doing so, perhaps those viewers may visit this site, an online resource about the threat of fake news.

As disinformation continues to invade our online experiences, and falsehoods overtake facts on cable and social media, it is my sincere hope that we can one day come to appreciate that truth really matters.

ABOUT THE SITE CREATOR

Ryan Cooper is an Emmy Award-winning journalist based in Los Angeles, with more than 22 years of television news experience at CNN. Previously, he worked in Atlanta and London. He will receive his Master of Arts degree from Gonzaga University in December 2019. For more of his work, visit his portfolio site at ryanccooper.com.