This class satisfied my Historical & Contemporary or Behavioral & Social perspective. Lies, Scams, and Conspiracy Theories had hooked me in with the title alone however the execution of the class was excellent. The class had a primarily discussion-based approach which made the class feel very organic although always on track with points looping back into our readings, discussion topics, and project interests. The books used during the class were interesting to read and actually felt like an addition to the class rather than a bit of busy work/padding. Throughout this class, we did learn about the aforementioned lies, scams, and conspiracy theories however they were all tied to the main function of communication leading us to critically think about how all three of these categories make people believe them. One of the weeks I remember best is when we looked at smiling to determine both how someone is feeling and if they are lying. Some did better than others at guessing but no one was as accurate as they thought and we learned about some of the science behind facial expressions and why we can pick up on them better with the context of other features (even if we don’t notice the others). Of course, since COVID-19 was still affecting us we also had the additional talking point of how masks can vastly affect reading one’s emotions and daily interactions with people.
Below is an artifact from the class which served in addition to our final presentation on a conspiracy theory. I chose missing 411 in which there are various conspiracy theories around how these people mysteriously disappeared with some believing it was supernatural causes and others believing its cover-ups while others believe it to just be that they got lost in the woods.
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