False information proliferates in the modern world. Words are used to confuse, mislead and deceive. Images are manipulated to shift their meaning. Statistics are misused to lie in support of agendas and causes. From propaganda to click-bait, from satire to conspiracy theory, from pseudoscience to partisan reporting, from stories describing events that actually never happened to unintentional errors of fact, false information is everywhere. The ubiquity of social media has radically redrawn the manner in which information is shared, but false information is not a product of the age of the Internet; it is something that has run through modern history. Using a series of case studies, this talk will examine the history of misinformation, or ‘mistakes’; disinformation, or ‘lies’ and ‘hoaxes’, which are false and spread deliberately to deceive; and malinformation, or ‘gossip’, which may perhaps be correct but is used to harm.  Ultimately, this is a talk about the primacy of analyzing evidence: it seeks to develop an understanding of how to assess evidence in all its aspects and how to use it. It is further concerned with critical thinking, as an essential tool for every historian and for every citizen in the modern world. 

Paul Rouse is a professor in the School of History at University College Dublin. He has written extensively on the history of Irish sport. His books include Sport and Ireland: a history (Oxford University Press, 2015) and The hurlers: the first All-Ireland Championship and the making of modern hurling (Penguin, 2018). His research also extends to popular culture, the history of the media, and the history of agriculture.Paul has worked on various TV programmes and documentaries for bote TG4 and RTE including Lost Generation, which tells the history of elderly Irish citizens who live in Britain, (RTE Prime Time Investigates).He writes a weekly column for the Irish Examiner newspaper and presents the Examiner Sport podcast on Gaelic football.