Internet debates have a way of flattening important issues into little more than hashtags. Serious studies of propaganda and misinformation have been undermined by politicians who call any ...

The day before Charlie Kirk was assassinated, I was teaching a college class on science, religion and magic. Our class was comparing the Salem witch trials of the 1690s with the McCarthy hearings of ...

Past vindication has turned into its own form of authority – and it’s just as unearned and just as dangerous as the institutional authority it replaced. The skeptics and the conspiracy theorists have ...

Public fear, and those responsible for creating or promoting it, are major topics of discussion these days. The sociological and criminological concept known as moral panic offers valuable insights ...

Haidt argues that smartphones and social media have "rewired childhood" and made kids more anxious and depressed. My son agrees. He brings Haidt's argument to schools. Max Stossel's nonprofit, "Social ...

Nintendo’s monster-collecting franchise was pilloried as a ‘pestilential Ponzi scheme’ in the 90s. But as its celebrates its 30th birthday, it now stands as a powerful example of video games’ ability ...

(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) The aim of the class was to better understand the concept of moral panics, which are ...