Using the Life Cycle of Media Manipulation, each case study features a chronological description of a media manipulation event, which is filtered along specific variables such as tactics, targets, mitigation, outcomes, and keywords.
How did a TikTok trend that never existed alarm schools and teachers across the United States? This case documents how viral misinformation spread by concerned adults and amplified by the press became a full-fledged media manipulation campaign.
When a Trump ally claimed migrants were bringing Ebola into the US, fears of a deadly infectious disease furthered his crowdfunded quest to build a border wall with Mexico and fueled anti-immigrant sentiment. The 2019 Ebola rumor wasn't true, but that didn't stop it spreading in the far-right media ecosystem from Texas across the nation.
