Prerequisite: GVPT170 Restriction: Must be in Government & Politics or International Relations program.

Why do smart people believe things that aren't true-and why do false claims persist even when facts are easy to find? This course blends the psychology of belief with the politics of today's fractured information environment. We explore how motivated reasoning, partisan identity, and platform incentives fuel misinformation, and why traditional fact-checking often falls short. Students will learn how to treat text as data: collecting real-world material from news, speeches, and social media; applying computational methods to detect patterns; and using sentiment analysis to evaluate what makes some narratives more persuasive than others. We also examine experimental efforts to correct misinformation, testing which interventions succeed and which fail.