TOK Exhibition

10. What challenges are raised by the dissemination and/or communication of

knowledge?

Word count: 924

Object 1: Alex Jones, a prominent American conspiracy theorist

Image taken from Timberg, 2018

Alex Jones is a famous American far-right conspiracy theorist, known for his show ‘Infowars’, which
received 8.11 million visits in April 2021 (Similarweb, 2021). In 2019, he was notably banned from
Facebook for spreading ideas such as the Pizzagate theory, which claims that Hillary Clinton and
her top aides ran a child sex ring in the basement of a Washington DC pizzeria called Comet Ping
Pong (Lopez, 2016).

Jones is included in the exhibition as he regularly presents his millions of viewers with
disinformation, which resulted in a shooting by one of his viewers in Comet Ping Pong, along with
increased societal divide and damage to democracy due to political polarisation, challenges in the
dissemination of knowledge (Lopez, 2016; McCoy, 2018; UC Santa Barbara, 2021). The Brookings
Institution describes disinformation as false information distributed with an intended harm
(Blankenship & Graham, 2020). Jones’ claim that “Hillary Clinton has personally murdered
children” qualifies as disinformation firstly because it is not true: it does not adhere to the
correspondence theory of truth as there is no evidence to support it. Secondly, it was disseminated
with an intention to harm Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign (Lopez, 2016).

Furthermore, Jones frequently presents his disinformation as shared, propositional knowledge.

However, his theories cannot be considered shared knowledge as they have not been rigorously
tested and agreed upon by authorities in the field, thus making the theories objective beliefs that
can either be supported with or challenged by evidence. This explains how, despite lacking
evidence, Jones’ audience may still consider Pizzagate as ‘knowledge’ as it is pragmatic to them: it
serves their own beliefs that Hillary Clinton is evil, even if it is just a belief masquerading as
knowledge (Beauchamp, 2016).

Object 2: A series of tweets from Burger King UK

Image taken from Elliott, 2021

The above image is a series of tweets from Burger King UK’s Twitter account that celebrated
International Women’s Day on the 8 of March 2021 by launching an initiative named H.E.R to help
th

increase the presence of women in the restaurant industry by providing scholarships to those who
aspire to become chefs. However, they decided to start the announcement by tweeting out the
controversial sentence: ‘Women belong in the kitchen’, which garnered criticism as some people
agreed with the message at face value whilst others decried it as ‘tone deaf’ (Elliott, 2021).

The tweets enhance the exhibition as it caused differing reactions online, a challenge in the
communication of knowledge caused by political perspectives, which are our opinions and beliefs
on how society should function. They are affected by our upbringing, family, and culture, among
others (Kognity, n.d.). They vary greatly and affect how we view and interpret knowledge. This
explains why some conservative commentators agreed with the initial misogynistic tweet, while
progressive commentators saw the tweets as an avoidable mistake on a day celebrating women and
their achievements (Elliott, 2021).

Through announcing their H.E.R programme, Burger King implied in their tweets that they were
challenging gender norms, which are one of the key issues that permeate the culture wars that
define contemporary American politics today (Encyclopedia.com, n.d.). Culture wars are ideological
conflicts for dominance between different groups arising from their differing beliefs, and thus,
political perspectives (Dictionary.com, n.d.). These conflicts can frame the cultural conversation of
society and thus help to develop cultural knowledge over time. However, culture wars can also be
incredibly damaging to the social fabric of societies, and particularly to the political compromises
that must be made in a functioning liberal democracy (Stanton, 2021).

Object 3: Propaganda in the Information Age, a book edited by Alan Macleod

Screenshot taken of the book cover

The media is not your friend. The media is a weapon of the elite in the battle for your mind. These
are the first two lines from the introduction of Propaganda in the Information Age, published in
2019, a modern ‘update’ to Noam Chomsky’s Manufacturing Consent. The book argues that news
media are abused by the powerful to maintain the status quo, and thus not the paragons of truth
that they may claim to be.

The book is an important addition to the exhibition as it raises concerns about how corporate and
governmental authorities control the dissemination of political knowledge for their own means,
which can be considered a significant challenge. Macleod provides evidence that “the vast majority”
of American media is owned by corporations such as Comcast and Disney. Therefore, he claims,
reports “questioning corporate power, capitalism and consumerism” are actively suppressed to
protect the owners from public scrutiny. This is dangerous as it allows the elite to manipulate what
knowledge is considered ‘acceptable’ for dissemination, thus preventing the public from having
access to all the political knowledge necessary to make informed decisions, opinions, and beliefs.

One of the key parts of the journalistic oath is to “seek truth and report it” (Society of Professional
Journalists, 2014). This makes Macleod’s claim that, in the 2003 invasion of Iraq, “journalists were
extremely obedient in reporting the lies they were told” extremely concerning as it is in direct
violation of this oath. Even more concerning is the fact that in this specific case, the lies came from
government authorities themselves, by presenting journalists and other government officials with
manipulated evidence to persuade the public to support the war (Kessler, 2019). Even though, as
Macleod states, some journalists questioned the evidence, the problem was their main source of
information was the authority itself. As evidence is one of the key factors in determining the
truthfulness of any knowledge claim, this manipulation of the facts made the media disseminate lies
to the public, which caused the press to lose consumer trust: in 2019, only half of US news
consumers trusted the media (Gill, 2020). This can be very dangerous, as these dissuaded citizens
could be driven to seek out alternate sources of knowledge and information that may be even less
reliable than the news media, such as Alex Jones, the first object of this TOK exhibition.
 Sources
Beauchamp, Z. (2016, December 7). Alex Jones, Pizzagate booster and America's most famous conspiracy
theorist, explained. Retrieved May 29, 2021, from Vox: https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
politics/2016/10/28/13424848/alex-jones-infowars-prisonplanet

Blankenship, M., & Graham, C. (2020, July 6). How misinformation spreads on Twitter. Retrieved June 2,
2021, from The Brookings Institution: https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-
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Dictionary.com. (n.d.). Culture War. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from Dictionary.com:

https://www.dictionary.com/browse/culture-war

Elliott, J. K. (2021, March 8). Burger King gets grilled for 'women belong in the kitchen' tweet. Retrieved May
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Kognity. (n.d.). 3.5.2 Perspectives. Retrieved June 5, 2021, from Kognity:

https://app.kognity.com/study/app/ibdp-theory-of-knowledge/optional-themes/knowledge-and-
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Similarweb. (2021, April). Infowars.com April 2021 Overview. Retrieved June 4, 2021, from Similarweb:
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democracy-analysis-489900
Timberg, C. (2018, November 5). Infowars was banned from Facebook, but Alex Jones videos and his followers
are still there. Retrieved June 2, 2021, from Chicago Tribune:
https://www.chicagotribune.com/nation-world/ct-alex-jones-facebook-20181105-story.html

UC Santa Barbara. (2021). The Danger of Fake News in Inflaming or Suppressing Social Conflict. Retrieved
June 5, 2021, from Center for Information Technology and Society at UC Santa Barbara:
https://www.cits.ucsb.edu/fake-news/danger-social