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Your Instructor
Brooke Binkowski is a veteran, award-winning journalist with a background in breaking news reporting, the U.S.-Mexico border, Indigenous rights, environmentalism, and post-conflict and humanitarian issues. After twenty years of reporting, she left those beats in 2015 to focus full-time on disinformation and propaganda campaigns, then called “fake news,” which were just beginning to plague American politics in earnest. By 2016, she realized that all of her previous beats were facets of the same story — a propaganda-fueled power grab leveraging pre-existing issues and aimed at destroying democratic institutions and norms. This course uses what she has learned over the past decades to identify common problems within information spaces and best practice for how to fight them.
Session dates and times
This class meets online once a week for activities and discussion. If you can’t make it, we will seek consent from the group to record and share the lecture.
- This course starts on 4 Sept and runs through 9 October
- Friday afternoons we will release the pre-recorded lecture for the following week.
- On Wednesdays at 4pm Pacific/7pm Eastern/11am Thursday NZST we will meet on Zoom. These sessions will vary each week and include discussions, activities, and guest lecturers.
How this course works
Taking inspiration from the long history around the world of folk education, particularly the Scandinavian and Appalachian traditions, this course is designed to offer a fun, affordable and rigorous experience–that serves the needs of working adults.
Like all folk education, liberation and movement building is at the core of the course. We save ourselves together–and we educate ourselves to build solidarity, share tactics, and create a shared vision for a better future for all of us.
There’s no grades, no assessments, no credentials.
This is about learning for the love of learning and the love of each other.
Course Date Planner
| Week | Topic | Lecture and Resources Release | Discussion |
| 1 | Disinformation!What is disinformation? Weaponised propaganda? Misinformation? This week we will explore the myriad definitions used by experts on disinformation and work to build a framework for understanding the nuances that help us draw a line between truth and disinformation. | 30 August | Session 1: 4 September, 2024 11am NZDT |
| 2 | Firehosing! This week will look at how one of the most common disinformation techniques works: firehosing! How does it influence our political discourse, who uses it, and how we can fight it? | 5 September | Session 2: 11 September, 2024 11am NZDT |
| 3 | Weaponised unreality and political gaslighting. How do certain political actors create a new reality for themselves? Why does this technique work and who is most vulnerable to it? What can we do to keep the actually existing world as the foundation for our political discourse? | 12 September | Session 3: 18 September, 2024 11am NZDT |
| 4 | Public distraction Squirrel! Squirrel! Distracting the public is yet another way our political discourse becomes focused on the wrong things. This week we will explore how political distraction works, when it works, and how we can collectively refocus on what really matters. | Session 4: 25 September, 2024 11am NZDT | |
| 5 | Signaling and dog whistling What do you do when your political ideology is so toxic, so odious that you can’t talk about it openly? Well, dogs aren’t the only ones who can be called with a whistle. This week we’ll explore how the worst people organise online, how they find each other, and how we can recognise them when they try to hide in plain sight. (Oh my god I hope you do fascist neon bullshit) | 26 September | Session 4: 2 October, 202411am NZDT |
| 6 | Resilience targeting Resilience is our ability to withstand hard things and bounce back. This week we will explore how disinformation actors use resilience targeting on our discourse to weaken our social bonds and make talking to each other nearly impossible–and what we can do to fight back and reclaim our political discourse. | 4 October | Session 5: 9 October, 202411am NZDT |
Course Tools
- Zoom, links will be sent out via email shortly before each class session begins
- Signal (optional)
We will be offering an optional “tech support session” early in the course so that you can ask questions, get help with Signal, and try out the tech tools we will be using.
Please come along if you need any help feeling comfortable with the tools we are using. If you aren’t comfortable with technology, please don’t worry! We will be happy to help you out and work to increase your comfort level.
Model for Each Week and Expectations
Each week will include a ~20-minute pre-recorded lecture and a 90-minute Zoom class session to discuss the material and engage in hands-on activities related to the course material.
We will also provide a list of resources including readings, podcasts, and videos for each week. You can choose to engage with these as we go along or save them for later.
Our goal is to provide readings at a range of levels—if you struggle with reading or have other literacy barriers, you should still find plenty of learning material for you.
You don’t have to be a reader to participate and we aim not to privilege those with better literacy skills.
You are good enough as you are.
Code of Conduct
Our goal is to create a vibrant and engaged learning community where we all prioritise learning and building relationships with each. This course and all Dark Times Academy classes and events aim to be accessible to all people regardless of age, disability, sexuality, background, religion, gender or ethnicity.
A respectful, open attitude towards others is expected from all. Harassment of any kind will not be tolerated and may result in your removal from the course.
Life is hard enough as it is; leading with kindness and patience is key to a great learning experience, one that ensures all members feel welcomed.
Anxiety, Busyness, and Stress
Doing an online course on top of your full-time job, care responsibilities, and other life stuff is really hard. It’s ok to fall behind! Please don’t let anxiety or stress lead you to avoid engaging or cause you to feel inadequate.
Do your best, it will be good enough. Ask for help if you need it. We are always happy to support you as best we can.
Accessibility
Please email mandy@darktimesacademy.co.nz with any accessibility needs. We are happy to work together to make this class work for you
Content Warnings
The nature of this topic means that we will occasionally discuss material that includes upsetting topics. We will do our best to warn you ahead of time when this is likely to happen. Please feel free to do what you need to do to protect your well-being.
Your health and mental well-being should always be your first priority and we will always respect that.
Register here.