Book review: Fighting falsehoods: Suspicion, analysis, and response
| Published date | 01 March 2024 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/01447394221145826 |
| Author | Matthew D Leight |
| Date | 01 March 2024 |
| Subject Matter | Book Reviews |
Book review
Teaching Public Administration
2024, Vol. 42(1) 119–121
© The Author(s) 2023
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Book review
Irene Rubin. Fighting falsehoods: Suspicion, analysis, and response. New York, NY: Routledge, 2022;
202 pp, $39.95 paperback, ISBN 978-1032287805
Reviewed by: Matthew D Leight, North Carolina State University, Raleigh, NC, USA
DOI: 10.1177/01447394221145826
The politicization of misinformation poses unique challenges to public administrators.
Appalling attempts to undermine and target bureaucrats who speak controversial truths
reduce the net incentives to combat “alternative facts.”Further, civil servants are not
immune from becoming victims of falsehoods themselves. While comm on sense and
general education help, they do not inoculate individuals against deception. There is a
need to provide teachers of public administration with the specific tools and tactics to
create knowledgeable consumers of information and soldiers in what amounts to a battle
for the stability of civil society.
In her recently released book, Fighting Falsehoods, Rubin provides a manual for
individuals seeking to learn and teach others how to recognize, analyze, and combat
misinformation. Comprehensive and navigable, Rubin addresses the process of de-
coding deception, beginning with identifying “clues”or red flags and proceeds to walk
readers through the practice of analyzing various forms of information for the presence
of deception tactics. Rubin supplies a wealth of examples that span various levels of
government, periods of history,and the geography of the United States. This diversity of
cases and context facilitates a deeper understanding and offers a launching point for
classroom activities and discussions. Finally, the book provides a plethora of weapons
for the individual, alongside both intrinsic and extrinsic incentives, for combating
disinformation. Importantly, Rubin avoids appearing sanctimonious and tailors the
content around the understanding that individuals have finite amounts of time and
energy.While not diminishing the importance of the cause, she recognizes that it is a war
of attrition.
In a nod to the magnitude of the suffering that misinformation has caused and its
indiscriminate nature, Rubin’s (2022, p. v) dedication reads, “To all those who have been
victims of false or misleading information. May it never happen to you again”In chapter
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