The 10 Best Books on Reproductive Rights

Arts & Culture, Books

Once a woman’s right to choose was a personal medical decision. Instead, over history, that right has been subject to power: political and religious, inextricable from inequalities of gender, race and class. Since the fall of Roe in 2022, abortion is illegal in over a quarter of the country and restricted in over half. It is so polarized along partisan lines that it is hard to imagine that it ever wasn’t and yet over time the debate has changed fundamentally.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
The following books seek to elucidate reproductive rights from disparate angles: historical, legal, rhetorical, societal, moral. What’s exceedingly clear is that women’s health is at risk. These books show how the infringement of reproductive rights endangers women. Women have died from illegal abortion, and discriminating medical care, been coerced into surrendering babies born out of wedlock, and undergone forced sterilization. And so, the fight for reproductive rights and justice continues. But perhaps the collective knowledge in these diverse books indicates some direction for a way forward.
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Leslie J. Reagan, When Abortion Was a Crime: Women, Medicine, and Law in the United States, 1867-1973, 1996Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
When Abortion Was a Crime was published in 1996 as the first history of the century-long period during which abortion was a crime. The book was reissued in February of 2022, before, but not unaware of the possibility of, the overturn of Roe v. Wade, with a new preface. In it, Reagan addresses that prospect; “If the Supreme Court overturns Roe, the country will be divided, with abortion legal in nearly half of the states and illegal in the other half.”
Already, thirteen states have fully banned abortion. Twenty-eight have bans according to gestational limits. When Abortion Was a Crime is “an unsettling illumination of what happens when abortion rights are nonexistent… a reflection on where we came from, a warning of what might lie ahead and a chilling reminder that history repeats itself” (Electric Literature). “We have concrete evidence of the consequences of making abortion a crime. That is the story this book tells” (Preface to the 2022 Edition). “Abortion, however, is an American tradition,” Reagan writes. “There would be no history of illegal abortion to tell without the continuing demand for abortion from women, regardless of law.” Leslie J. Reagan is a Professor History, Law, Gender and Women’s Studies, and Media Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
1998 James Willard Hurst Book Award Winner (Law and Society Association) • 1995 President’s Book Award Winner (Social Science History Association) • 1997 Choice Outstanding Academic Book of the Year

Sara Gallardo, January, 1958Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
Translated into English for the first time in 2023, January, originally published in 1958, is a “short and hair-raisingly good” novel from Argentine writer, Sara Gallardo, “a writer of terrifying intelligence” (New York Review of Books, The New Yorker). “January was the first Argentine novel to represent rape from the survivor’s perspective and to explore the life-threatening risks pregnancy posed in a society where abortion was both outlawed and taboo” (Archipelago Books). “Argentinian feminists, who in 2020 won the right to legal abortion nationwide during the first fourteen weeks of pregnancy, …still reference January as a turning point in the nation’s consciousness” (The New Yorker). “A crystalline and tightly-wound story…Elegant and forceful–I couldn’t put it down” (Catherine Lacey, author of Biography of X).
One of The New Yorker’s Best Books of 2023

Joshua Prager, The Family Roe: An American Story, 2021
Ask anyone the first Supreme Court decision that comes to mind, their answer, likely, “Roe v. Wade.” But would they know anything about “Jane Roe,” the plaintiff, a woman named Norma McCorvey, who is inextricable from abortion discourse, though she never had one? The Family Roe tells her story, it is a biography of her life and the life of Roe v. Wade—the story of abortion through people instead of politics (The New York Times). Joshua Prager, journalist and author, “is not unsympathetic to McCorvey, but he sees her clearly”—she is “both heroine and villain—and a paragon of human complexity (The New Yorker, The NYT). Her story is not what you might expect, and Prager, who spent hundreds of hours with Norma before she died in 2017, gets at a fundamental truth. Bodily autonomy is a human right, it should not depend upon the human to earn it.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads
Finalist for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction •  Finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize • Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction • One of NPR’s Best Books of 2021 • A New York Times Notable Book of 2021 • One of TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2021

Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, The Fall of Roe: The Rise of a New America, 2024
Elizabeth Dias and Lisa Lerer, two top New York Times journalists, set out to understand how, after 50 years, Roe fell. They “thought [they] knew the answer,” since they “have reported on abortion in American politics and religion for most of [their] careers.” But “the political tale [they] uncovered is explosive.” “The battle over abortion is not just about whether a woman can end a pregnancy. It is about what it means to be a woman in America at all.” What they found is far more existential, far more complex, than the obvious fact of Trump’s three new Supreme Court appointees. “As Dias and Lerer write, the fight against legal abortion is tied inextricably to the fight for America’s soul” (New York Magazine).
“The Fall of Roe unfolds like a horror story. Danger lurked outside the cabin door, but the threat was never fully perceived by those who lived within” (New York Magazine). Dias and Lerer portray the Liberal establishment that, instead of continuing the fight, rested on their laurels, hubristically assuming that Roe would never really fall. Abortion rights are again on the ballot – as Nicole Wallace said on MSNBC, this is “the most important book in the lead up to this election.” The Fall of Roe was a National Bestseller.Article continues after advertisementRemove Ads

Katie Watson, Scarlet A: The Ethics, Law, and Politics of Ordinary Abortion, 2018
Katie Watson, medical professor, bioethicist and lawyer, begins her book, Scarlet A, unexpectedly—with a trip to Rome. Where, on a Medieval hospital wall, she noticed a strange mechanism. It was a ‘Foundling Wheel’ built in the year 1200 where parents could anonymously leave an unwanted baby—turning the wheel delivered the baby safely into the hospital, where the baby would then be raised by strangers. This experience begins Watson’s line of inquiry in Scarlet A—this universal age-old question of an unwanted pregnancy, and the enduring complexity of the private decision of what to do about it.
But the conversation around abortion is so politicized, it’s a difficult topic to broach. Watson believes that “abortion was correctly identified as a constitutionally protected right and it must remain legal,” but that “we should be able to acknowledge the complexity of private decision making without threatening the right of private decision making.” What results is “an unusual hybrid of a book: part memoir, part legal exegesis, part philosophical tract, part conversational guide” (The New York Times). Watson identifies that the abortions “we discuss most are the ones that occur least” since on each side of the aisle advocates emphasize the extremes. “There’s something unreal about the American abortion conversation,” Watson writes. Scarlet A is her attempt to examine the ordinary reality.
Winner of the NCTE George Orwell Award for Distinguished Contribution to Honesty and Clarity in Public Language

Dána-Ain Davis, Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth, 2019
Dána-Ain Davis “builds on nearly 30 years of reproductive justice activism and social scientific scholarship to examine how racism informs Black women’s experiences of pregnancy and premature birth” (Oxford University Press). Most research on premature birth has involved poor and low-income women, but Reproductive Injustice “focuses on the experiences of more affluent women to show that race is as much a common denominator as class in adverse birth outcomes” (Oxford Academic).
The book connects the history and current reality of medical racism to an afterlife of slavery, and in illuminating the ways in which that racism persists, seeks to garner change in medicine. Dána-Ain Davis is the Director of the Center for the Study of Women and Society at the Graduate Center, CUNY and Professor of Urban Studies and Anthropology. Reproductive Injustice was listed in New York Magazine as one of seven books on anti-racism.
Eileen Basker Prize in Medical Anthropology, 2020 • Association for Feminist Anthropology’s 2020 Senior Book Prize • Honorable Mention for the Victor Turner Prize in Ethnographic Writing • Finalist for the AAP’s 2020 PROSE Award 

Mary Ziegler, Roe: The History of a National Obsession, 2023
Mary Ziegler is an expert on abortion law. Roe: The History of a National Obsession is her sixth book in a corpus of extensively researched, and analyzed books on reproductive rights in America. This latest book, Roe, “can be understood as a history of the abortion as an argument, and how that argument has influenced American politics over the past half-century,” tracking the rhetoric employed on both sides, from the late 60s, to Roe v. Wade in 1973, when the issue was not yet polarized along partisan lines, all the way to Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health in 2022, which overturned Roe (The Nation). “Ziegler’s greatest contribution to the legal history of abortion (besides her prodigious research and her ability to uncover information that no one else has discovered) is her even-handed analysis and attention to nuance and complexity” (Daniel K. Williams, author of Defenders of the Unborn: The Pro-Life Movement Before Roe v. Wade).

Annie Ernaux, Happening, 2001 
Annie Ernaux won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2022; her body of work speaks “specifically to women and to others, who like her, come from a working class seldom depicted with such clarity” (New York Times). Happening is no different, “recount[ing] what it was like to be a young woman whose life changed—and world ominously narrowed—in 1963 with an unwanted pregnancy… It feels urgently of the moment” (NYT). In 1963, Ernaux is 23. She “hope[s] to see a stain appear,” as she waits for her period to come. When it doesn’t, she writes in her diary, “I am pregnant. It’s a nightmare.” Desperately, she seeks an illegal abortion and the experience almost kills her. “There were the other girls, with their empty bellies, and there was me.”

Michele Goodwin, Policing the Womb: Invisible Women and the Criminalization of Motherhood, 2020
“Not only is the United States the deadliest country in the developed world for pregnant women, but the severe lack of protections for reproductive rights and motherhood is compounding racial and indigent disparities” (Lit Hub). Michele Goodwin, American legal scholar and professor whose expertise is in the fields of bioethics and health law, draws on extensive research and advocacy in Policing the Womb. The book “vividly shows how the intensifying punishment of pregnant women in the name of fetal protection comes at a devastating cost to human health and freedom” (Dorothy Roberts, author of Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of Liberty). Policing the Womb “contains the best explanation I’ve read for the necessity of reproductive justice, not just reproductive rights” (The Washington Post).
Outstanding Academic Titles for 2021, Choice Reviews

Ann Fessler, The Girls Who Went Away: The Hidden History of Women Who Surrendered Children for Adoption in the Decades Before Roe v. Wade, 2006
In the two decades leading up to Roe v. Wade in 1973, it is estimated that 1.5 million unwed mothers were shamed and hidden away in maternity homes, forced to have their babies, then coerced into giving them up for adoption (The Washington Post). Ann Fessler, a documentary filmmaker, installation artist, and professor of photography at RISD, collected over 100 oral histories from these women. Fessler was herself adopted in the 50s, she was one of the babies “surrendered.” The Girls Who Went Away “is a remarkably well-researched and accomplished book” (The New York Times). “It would take a heart of stone not to be moved by the oral histories of these women and by the courage and candor with which they express themselves” (The Washington Post).
Finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2006 •  Winner of Women’s Way Ballard Book Prize in 2008

Drunk animals far more common than previously thought, scientists say

Science and Health

Your support helps us to tell the storyThis election is still a dead heat, according to most polls. In a fight with such wafer-thin margins, we need reporters on the ground talking to the people Trump and Harris are courting. Your support allows us to keep sending journalists to the story.The Independent is trusted by 27 million Americans from across the entire political spectrum every month. Unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock you out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. But quality journalism must still be paid for.Help us keep bring these critical stories to light. Your support makes all the difference.CloseRead moreCloseDrinking alcohol may be far less of a human characteristic than previously thought, according to a new scientific paper arguing that ethanol consumption is widespread in the animal kingdom.While stories of wild animals behaving in a drunken fashion after eating fermented fruits frequently make headlines, such behaviour is mostly assumed to be rare and accidental.However ecologists have challenged this “anthropocentric” view in a new review of scientific papers, published in the Trends in Ecology & Evolution journal.They argue that since ethanol is naturally present in nearly every ecosystem, it is likely consumed on a regular basis by most animals that eat fruit and nectar.The researchers found a “diverse coterie” of species previously noted by scientists to have adapted to ethanol in their diets, from chimpanzees to treeshrews.“We’re moving away from this anthropocentric view that ethanol is just something that humans use,” said Dr Kimberley Hockings, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Exeter. “It’s much more abundant in the natural world than we previously thought, and most animals that eat sugary fruits are going to be exposed to some level of ethanol.”Ethanol first became abundant around 100 million years ago, when flowering plants began producing sugary nectar and fruits that yeast could ferment. Naturally fermented fruits typically only reach 1 to 2 per cent alcohol by volume (ABV), but concentrations as high as 10.2 per cent ABV have been found in over-ripe palm fruit.While animals had already harboured genes capable of metabolising ethanol before yeasts began producing it, there is evidence that evolution has since fine-tuned this ability for mammals and birds that consume fruit and nectar, the scientists said.Fruit flies have previously been found to turn to alcohol after being rejected by a mate

FABA: Business like bee, sweet like honey

Business News

In 2015, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, during one of his speeches, mentioned the concept of ‘Sweet Kranti,’ encouraging more farmers to explore bee-keeping. Inspired by this vision, the founder of FABA Honey, Mukesh Pathak saw an opportunity to make a difference in the agricultural sector. Believing that PM Modi’s speeches carried deep meaning, this speech ignited the founder’s passion to pursue beekeeping as a serious business.

However, getting started was not an easy task. Upon researching the beekeeping industry, it became apparent that very few people were engaged in this line of work, and finding reliable information was a challenge. But a fortunate encounter with a person already in the bee-keeping business opened the door. FABA Honey began with just 8-10 bee boxes, and from the very beginning, the focus was on quality over quantity.
The Journey to Quality
One of the biggest hurdles Pathak encountered was the widespread practice of honey adulteration in the industry. Pathak told Organiser : “Major brands often mix honey with sugar syrups to lower costs, at the expense of quality and fair farmer compensation. These practices not only degrade the natural purity of honey but also fail to pay farmers what they deserve. FABA Honey’s mission, therefore, became clear: to deliver pure, high-quality honey directly from bee-keepers to consumers.”
The company’s first bottle was sold through Twitter, marking the beginning of its journey. Instead of resorting to negative publicity about other brands, FaBa Honey focused on letting the quality of their product speak for itself. But the challenges didn’t stop there. Regulatory barriers also posed problems, as even the purest honey from beekeepers could get rejected under FSSAI norms, while adulterated honey could sometimes pass.
Building a Dedicated Team
FaBa Honey officially launched in 2017. Along with a few friends, Pathak established a small but dedicated team, which now consists of around 15 permanent members handling all aspects of the business, from production to sales and marketing. Additionally, FaBa Honey has created a beekeeper welfare society to support the community involved in this specialised field.
Challenges in Bee-keeping
“Bee-keeping comes with its own set of unique challenges,” said Pathak, adding how the bees need to migrate with the changing seasons to gather nectar from various flowers, as no flower blooms all year in the same place. To maintain the authenticity of their honey,FABA Honey’s team travels across different regions like Uttarakhand, Himachal Pradesh, and Jammu & Kashmir, following a meticulously designed floral calendar.

“This nomadic lifestyle brings its own set of risks, including losses due to mishaps and legal challenges from operating in forested areas,” added Pathak. On top of this, consumers often question why FABA Honey’s prices are higher than those of big brands. The answer lies in the unparalleled quality ofFABA Honey, which remains undiluted and unadulterated.
Overcoming Challenges with Transparency
Despite these obstacles, FABA Honey leverages social media to educate consumers on the importance of quality in honey production. As customers experience the difference, they begin to understand why FABA Honey products are priced higher than mainstream brands.
“With an annual turnover of around Rs 2.5 crores, FABA Honey remains independent, never having taken external investments, staying true to its agricultural roots,” added Pathak proudly.
Looking Ahead: Flora-Based Honey
“Every bottle of honey will soon carry details about the specific flowers the bees used for nectar, ensuring customers know exactly what they are consuming. For example, honey made from ajwain (Trachyspermum ammi) flowers could help those with stomach issues,” informed Pathak while talking about the future plans of FaBa Honey to bring more transparency and traceability to their products.
Each bottle’s distinct hue indicates that the honey within has been carefully harvested from a unique flora, boasting its own exceptional characteristic
No major brands currently offer this level of specificity, and FaBa Honey is advocating for FSSAI to make flora identification mandatory.
The startup’s future vision also involves scaling up the beekeeping industry. By encouraging both rural and urban dwellers to get involved, FaBa Honey aims to create more jobs and promote eco-friendly, sustainable production that doesn’t rely on depleting natural resources like petrol or electricity.

Perry football: Walter Moses eclipses his idol en route to record book

Arts & Culture, Books

It’s good to have idols when you’re a young kid.It’s good to have role models, people you look up to and think, “I want to be like THAT someday.”For Walter Moses, that person was former Perry quarterback Drew Schiano, a 2020 graduate who pretty much owns the record books when it comes to passing at Perry.Well, scratch that — Schiano OWNED the passing record books at Perry.With a dynamic senior season that still has a long way to go, Walter Moses has surpassed the guy he grew up watching and in a sense idolizing. His 6,557 career yards and 80 career touchdown passes came at the expense of Schiano, who used to hold those records with 6,054 yards and 79 touchdowns.So if there’s one thing better than having an idol and role model to look up to, it might be topping the records of that idol and role model.Walter Moses looked up to Drew Schiano as a youngster, and now Moses has topped Schiano’s records for career touchdown passes and career passing yards at Perry. (Courtesy of Amy Moses)“It’s definitely surreal,” Moses said. “When I was a kid, I looked up to Drew and Jacob Allen. I loved watching Drew play. He definitely made me fall in love with the position. What he did gave me a lot of motivation to try and do what he did when he was in high school.”The son of a father (Sean) and a mother (Amy) who played college baseball and softball, respectively, at Hiram College, Walter Moses chose his own path away from the ball diamond, and it has paid amazing dividends.The 6-foot-4, 190-pound senior helped lead Perry to the 2023 state championship — the only state title in Perry football history — earned first team All-Ohio as a junior and now owns a pair of career passing records.He’s also earned a full athletic scholarship to the University of Toledo.And he’s not done yet.Not by a longshot.Perry quarterback Walter Moses has thrown for 80 touchdowns so far in his high school career.(Brian Fisher – For The News-Herald)“It was never a goal of mine to set records like that,” Moses said. “It’s nice, but I didn’t come in with personal goals like that. It was more of team goals and playing with my guys.”Guys like fellow seniors Owen McKoon and Luke Sivon, friends with whom he has played football since — well — as long as he can remember. All the way back to his flag football days in preschool.“You don’t throw the ball much then,” Moses said with a laugh. “Owen was the center and ran routes from there. Luke was a receiver. You just throw short passes and they run a far distance — kind of like we do today.”In junior high, Moses didn’t even play quarterback, but rather up-back in the Pirates’ Stack-I offense. The quarterback was Johnny Slaper, who eventually transferred to St. Edward when he got to high school and won a pair of state championships with the Eagles as a ball-hawking defensive player.Moses again set his eyes on playing quarterback. He attended every Perry game as a junior high player and studied how Drew Schiano went about his trade. The physical aspects, the mental reps, the leadership — Moses studied it all. He even took Schiano Skittles for good luck on game days.By the time he was a freshman, he was ready for some varsity action.“I just want to be remembered as a role model to younger kids. I really think that’s important. Jacob Allen and Drew Schiano were so important to me because they made me love football and watch football. … I love that they want to hang out with me or want me to throw a pass to them. That means a lot to me. THAT is what I want to be remembered for — not for the records.”
— Walter Moses
“My first varsity touchdown was at Chagrin Falls,” Moses said. “It was a play-action and Ethan Crum ran a vertical. It went for 60 yards or so. It was pretty cool.”Moses said one of the “cool” things about being the quarterback is how many different teammates he has thrown touchdown passes to over the years. He can’t count them all, but when you’ve thrown 80 (and counting) touchdown passes, it stands to reason they blend together a little.His record-breaking touchdown pass came in a Week 10 game against Hawken. He tied Schiano’s record on the first play of the game, and then he broke it with a second-quarter crossing pattern to tight end Trent Taylor.The career yardage record went down in a Week 7 game against Orange, a 62-0 throttling at the hands of the Pirates.“I kind of knew the record was coming,” Moses said. “Drew’s dad (Mark) is one of our coaches and we were kind of joking around about it. I was like eight yards away from the record and were joking ‘Drew’s going down.’”The record-breaker was an 80-yard post pattern to Sivon, one of the “dudes” he grew up playing football with.“It was awesome to achieve the record that way,” he said of the pass to longtime friend Sivon. “My parents and I were talking about how special that was. It’s not like I was hunting him out to break the record. It just happened, but it was special to break it with him catching that pass.”Moses quickly pointed out that the records he owns should be classified as team awards.“I’m not throwing these passes without my line and receivers,” he said. “It’s cool to hold these records, but I got to do it because of and with so many people.”Moses is excited for the path ahead of him once he graduates. A football scholarship to Toledo, where he plans to major in pre-law awaits him and the 4.25 grade-point average he is currently sporting.But his job at Perry is far from over. He’d love another state championship ring to go with the one he and the Pirates won last year. Perry is 9-1 heading into a Week 11 home playoff game against Akron Buchtel, and has no plans on stopping there.There’s also the matter of stacking more numbers on the records that he already holds.But there’s more that Moses wants to accomplish, and he takes steps in that direction every day in school and after every game he and his teammates play.Young Walter Moses rolls out to throw a pass to Luke Sivon. Moses and Sivon are now seniors and Moses is the all-time leader in career passing yards and passing touchdowns at Perry. (Courtesy of Amy Moses)Taking time to talk with younger kids — his fans — kids who look up to him the way he looked up to Drew Schiano.“How do I want to be remembered?” he repeated the question asked of him. “I just want to be remembered as a role model to younger kids. I really think that’s important. Jacob Allen and Drew Schiano were so important to me because they made me love football and watch football.”During school and after games, it’s not out of the ordinary for young Perry kids to hunt down Moses and buddy-up with him.“I love that,” Moses said. “A lot of times, kids can be afraid to do that. I love that they want to hang out with me or want me to throw a pass to them. That means a lot to me. THAT is what I want to be remembered for — not for the records.”

Misinformation is more than just bad facts: How and why people spread rumors is key to understanding how false information travels and takes root

Travel

On Sept. 20, 2024, a newspaper in Montana reported an issue with ballots provided to overseas voters registered in the state: Kamala Harris was not on the ballot. Election officials were able to quickly remedy the problem but not before accusations began to spread online, primarily among Democrats, that the Republican secretary of state had purposefully left Harris off the ballot.

This false rumor emerged from a common pattern: Some people view evidence such as good-faith errors in election administration through a mindset of elections being untrustworthy or “rigged,” leading them to misinterpret that evidence.

As the U.S. approaches another high-stakes and contentious election, concerns about the pervasive spread of falsehoods about election integrity are again front of mind. Some election experts worry that false claims may be mobilized – as they were in 2020 – into efforts to contest the election through tactics such as lawsuits, protests, disruptions to vote-counting and pressure on election officials to not certify the election.

Our team at the University of Washington has studied online rumors and misinformation for more than a decade. Since 2020, we have focused on rapid analysis of falsehoods about U.S. election administration, from sincere confusion about when and where to vote to intentional efforts to sow distrust in the process. Our motivations are to help quickly identify emerging rumors about election administration and analyze the dynamics of how these rumors take shape and spread online.

Through the course of this research we have learned that despite all the discussion about misinformation being a problem of bad facts, most misleading election rumors stem not from false or manipulated evidence but from misinterpretations and mischaracterizations. In other words, the problem is not just about bad facts but also faulty frames, or the mental structures people rely on to interpret those facts.

Misinformation may not be the best label for addressing the problem – it’s more an issue of how people make sense of the world, how that sensemaking process is shaped by social, political and informational dynamics, and how it begets rumors that can lead people to a false understanding of events.

Rumors – not misinformation

There is a long history of research on rumors going back to World War II and earlier. From this perspective, rumors are unverified stories, spreading through informal channels that serve informational, psychological and social purposes. We are applying this knowledge to the study of online falsehoods.

Though many rumors are false, some turn out to be true or partially true. Even when false, rumors can contain useful indications of real confusions or fears within a community.

Rumors can be seen as a natural byproduct of collective sensemaking – that is, efforts by groups of well-meaning people to make sense of uncertain and ambiguous information during dynamic events. But rumors can also emerge from propaganda and disinformation campaigns that lead people to misinterpret or mischaracterize their own and others’ experiences.

University of Washington’s Kate Starbird explains rumors as collective sensemaking.

Evidence, frames and (mis)interpretations

Prior research describes collective sensemaking as a process of interactions between evidence and frames. Evidence includes the things people see, read and hear in the world. Frames are mental schema that shape how people interpret that evidence.

The relationship between evidence and frames flows in two directions. When people encounter novel events or new evidence, they try to select the best frame from their mental filing cabinets. The selected frame then determines what evidence they focus on and what evidence they exclude in their interpretations. This evidence-frame view of collective sensemaking can help researchers understand rumors and disinformation.

Everyone has their own ways of interpreting events based on their unique experiences. But your frames are not yours alone. Frames are shaped, sometimes intentionally, by information from media, political leaders, communities, colleagues, friends, neighbors and family. Framing – the process of using, building, reinforcing, adapting, challenging and updating frames – can be a deliberate strategy of political communication.

Frames play a role in generating rumors, shaping how people interpret emerging events and novel evidence. False rumors occur when sensemaking goes awry, often due to people focusing on the wrong piece of evidence or applying the wrong frame. And disinformation, from this perspective, is the intentional manipulation of the sensemaking process, either by introducing false evidence or distorting the frames through which people interpret that evidence.

In 2020, we saw these dynamics at work in a rumor about Sharpie pens in Arizona. In the lead-up to the election, President Donald Trump and his allies repeatedly alleged that the election would be rigged – setting a powerful frame for his followers. When voters noted that the Sharpie pens provided by election officials were bleeding through their ballots, many interpreted their experiences through the frame of a “rigged election” and became concerned that their ballots would not be counted.

A Maricopa County, Arizona, election worker counts ballots in the 2020 election as false rumors that Sharpie pens were ruining ballots spread online.
AP Photo/Matt York

Some people shared those experiences online, where they were soon amplified and given meaning by others, including online influencers. Concerns and suspicions grew. Soon, members of Trump’s family were repeating false claims that the bleed-through was systematically disenfranchising Republican voters. The effect was circular and mutually reinforcing. The strategic frame inspired misinterpretations of evidence – real bleed-through falsely seen as affecting ballot counting – that were shared and amplified, strengthening the frame.

Social media sensemaking

Collective sensemaking is increasingly taking place online, where it is profoundly shaped by social media platforms, from features such as repost and like buttons to algorithmic recommendations to the connections between accounts.

Not so long ago, many people hoped that the internet would democratize information flows by removing the historical gatekeepers of information and disrupting their ability to set the agenda – and the frames – of conversation. But the gatekeepers have not been erased; they have been replaced. A group of newsbrokering influencers have taken their place, in part by gaming the ways online systems manipulate attention.

Many of these influencers work by systematically seeking out and amplifying content that aligns with prevailing political frames set by elites in politics and media. This gives creators the incentive to produce content that resonates with those frames, because that content tends to be rewarded with attention, the primary commodity of social media.

These dynamics were at work in February 2024, when an aspiring creator produced a man-on-the-street video interviewing migrants to the U.S. that was selectively edited and captioned to falsely claim to show undocumented migrants planning to vote illegally in U.S. elections. This resonated with two prominent frames: the same rigged-election frame from 2020 and another that framed immigration as harmful to the U.S.

The video was shared across multiple platforms and exploded in views after being amplified by a series of accounts with large followings on X, formerly Twitter. X CEO Elon Musk commented with an exclamation point on one post with the embedded video. The creator soon found himself on Fox News. He currently has hundreds of thousands of followers on TikTok and Instagram and continues to produce similar content.

Interactions between influencers and online audiences result in content that fits strategic frames. Emerging events provide new evidence that people can twist to fit prevailing frames, both intentionally and unintentionally. Rumors are the byproducts of this process, and online attention dynamics fuel their spread.

Collective sensemaking and election 2024

Heading into the 2024 election, false and misleading claims about election integrity remain widespread. Our team has tracked more than 100 distinct rumors since the beginning of September. The machinery for quickly converting perceived evidence from elections into widely shared rumors and conspiracy theories is increasingly well oiled.

Experts discuss election integrity and efforts to undermine voter confidence.

One concerning development is an increase in so-called election integrity organizations that seek to recruit volunteers who share the rigged-election frame. The groups aim to provide volunteers with tools to streamline the collection and amplification of evidence to support the rigged-election frame.

One worry is that these volunteers may misinterpret what they see and hear on Election Day, generating additional rumors and false claims about election integrity that reinforce that increasingly distorted frame. Another is that these false claims will feed lawsuits and other attempts to contest election results.

However, we hope that by shedding light on some of these dynamics, we can help researchers, journalists, election officials and other decision-makers better diagnose and respond to rumors about election integrity in this cycle. Most importantly, we believe that this collective sensemaking lens can help us all to both empathize with well-meaning people who get caught up in sharing false rumors and see how propagandists manipulate these processes for their gain.

Traders in Erode’s Abdul Gani Textile Hub protest roadside vendors disrupting business

Business News

Tension prevailed for a while outside the Abdul Gani Textile Hub (Gani Market) at Panneerselvam Park on Wednesday after traders got into an altercation with roadside textile shops whom they accused of infringing on their business.The traders, who were looking forward to good business this Deepavali season, found themselves losing out to numerous roadside stalls set up along the stretch fro Panneerselvam Park to Manikoondu and T.V.S Street, forcing them to confront the vendors. The ensuing altercation disrupted vehicle movement for 30 minutes.Corporation officials and Erode Town police intervened, ordering the removal of encroaching shops. Though the temporary stalls were cleared, vendors returned to the area after the officials departed. Published – October 30, 2024 05:46 pm IST
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