Media

Media Kit

ARTICLES

Our digital public squares aren’t so healthy. Can we fix that? Salon, January 28, 2023.

Getting to the Root of the Social Media Crisis. LA Progressive, February 25, 2023.

What Does the Design of the Federal Highway System Have to do with Misinformation? Medium. 2023.

Section 230 reform isn’t going to solve our problems. Womens’ Voices Media. 2023.

HGSE Awards Roundup | Harvard Graduate School of Education

Praise for Building Back Truth in an Age of Misinformation

Stebbins thoroughly diagnoses the causes, culprits, and tactics of social media’s plague of disinformation, but she also does something remarkable: gives us hope for a way out of it. “Building Back Truth” is the call to action we all need to pick up and act on. — David Sax, author of The Future is Analog.

A librarian/researcher can be a superhero—as  Leslie Stebbins demonstrates in this searing investigation of misinformation and detailed discussion of meaningful reforms. … Stebbins makes clear there is no right to viral amplification of speech—and shows promising ways to fight digital boosting of false and harmful words.–Martha Minow, Author, Saving the News and 300^th Anniversary University Professor, Harvard University and former Dean of the Harvard Law School 

In her groundbreaking work, Building Back Truth in an Age of Misinformation, Stebbins not only approaches the problems of misinformation with clarity and compassion, she charts a dynamic, care-centered response to information disorder that prioritizes agency and intentionality in how we engage in information ecosystems today. ‘This book is about Hope,’ Stebbins writes. A hope that is reflected in her thoughtful approaches to reforming platforms, policies, and public engagement to make our information environments more inclusive, equitable, and in service of those at the margins of society today.  –Paul Mihailidis, Associate professor of Civic Media and Journalism, School of Communication and Senior Fellow, Engagement Lab, Emerson College 

Leslie Stebbins offers an optimistic and practical stance on how to move beyond merely documenting the problem of disinformation, political polarization, and the strategies used by powerful digital platforms to increasingly shape our lived experience. As they read Building Back Truth in an Age of Misinformation, readers will reflect on their own individual and collective behavior and be inspired to take much-needed action to restore trust and repair our communication environment.—Renee Hobbs, Professor of Communication Studies and Director of the Media Education Lab at the University of Rhode Island

Combating information disorder is one of the hardest and most important challenges of our time. Stebbins gives us reason to hope we might navigate this complex landscape and, in the process, end up building something better than the internet we currently have. –-Ethan Zuckerman, Associate Professor of Public Policy, Information and Communication and Founder, Initiative for Digital Public Infrastructure, University of Massachusetts–Amherst. (Excerpt from the Foreword to Building Back Truth in an Age of Misinformation)

Building Back Truth in an Age of Misinformation is proof we can protect ourselves from the deluge of toxic lies being pumped out on social media platforms and find the trustworthy information we need. This book lays out a smart and convincing argument for restoring our hope in a public interest internet that early pioneers once envisioned.   –-Alison Head, Director of Project Information Literacy\

Unlike most discussions of our polluted information environment, Stebbins takes a holistic view, outlining ways we can teach better, create a healthier environment for journalism, build better checks and balances into our social media platforms, use public policy to promote the public good and build new, robust digital public squares for the public good. This is a hopeful, informative, big-picture roadmap for our time. –Barbara Fister, Professor Emerita, Gustavus Adolphus College and Author, The Librarian War Against QAnon