SLU-Madrid Communication Expert Explains Sham Journalism at Global Conference in France

Brian Goss, Ph.D. (Communication), recently participated in the selective and prestigious International Association of Media and Communication Research (IAMCR) annual conference. The 2023 iteration of the event was entitled "Inhabiting the Planet: Challenges for Media, Communication, and Beyond".

The conference convened at the Université Claude Bernard in Lyon, France, with a diverse roster of researchers from around the globe. 

Goss participated in the event as a presenter and as a co-chair of a panel. The paper he presented, "Introducing Sham Journalism: A Case Study of Newsmax.com", was published in April 2023 in Journalism Practice. The panel that he co-chaired was entitled "Journalism: Diverse Perspectives." 

"There is a mammoth-sized problem in the U.S. with disinformation from entities that defile the term 'news' even as they incorporate it into their names as Newsmax does," he said. "Newsmax is currently subject to legal action over its trashy lies around the 2020 election, so the magnitude of the stakes here are self-evident."

The panel that he co-chaired with Jacqueline Harrison of University of Sheffield (UK) included participants from Europe, Latin America and East Asia. During the conference, Goss also renewed personal and professional contacts that will likely lead to guest lectures and their attendant new angles of scholarly vision to educate SLU-Madrid students.