Table Of ContentBias, Belief, and Conviction
in an Age of Fake Facts
In this book, the authors engage in an interdisciplinary discourse of theory
and practice on the concept of personal conviction, addressing the variety
of gray zones that mark the concept.
Bias, Belief, and Conviction in an Age of Fake Facts discusses where
our convictions come from and whether we are aware of them, why they
compel us to certain actions, and whether we can change our convictions
when presented with opposing evidence, which prove our personal convic-
tions “ wrong.” Scholars from philosophy, psychology, comparative litera-
ture, media studies, applied linguistics, intercultural communication, and
education shed light on the topic of personal conviction, crossing discipli-
nary boundaries and asking questions not only of importance to scholars
but also related to the role and possible impact of conviction in the public
sphere, education, and in political and cultural discourse.
By taking a critical look at personal conviction as an element of inquiry
within the humanities and social sciences, this book will contribute sub-
stantially to the study of conviction as an aspect of the self we all carry
within us and are called upon to examine. It will be of particular interest
to scholars in communication and journalism studies, media studies, phi-
losophy, and psychology.
Anke Finger is a Professor of German Studies, Comparative Literature, and
Media Studies at the University of Connecticut, USA. Her many publica-
tions focus on the total artwork, expressionism, and the media philosopher
Vilém Flusser, among other topics, within the areas of modernism, media
studies, and intercultural communication.
Manuela Wagner is a Professor of Language Education at the University of
Connecticut, USA. She has published widely on the interplay of theory and
practice of intercultural dialogue as it relates to social justice and education.
Routledge Research in Cultural and Media Studies
Celebrity Bromance
Constructing, Interpreting and Utilising Personas
Celia Lam and Jackie Raphael
Celebrity and New Media
Gatekeeping Success
Stephanie Patrick
Mediatisation of Emotional Life
Edited by Katarzyna Kopecka- Piech and Mateusz Sobiech
Serial Killers in Contemporary Television
Familiar Monsters in Post- 9/ 11 Culture
Edited by Brett A.B. Robinson and Christine Daigle
The Eurovision Song Contest as a Cultural Phenomenon
From Concert Halls to the Halls of Academia
Edited by Adam Dubin, Dean Vuletic and Antonio Obregón
Drag in the Global Digital Public Sphere
Queer Visibility, Online Discourse and Political Change
Edited by Niall Brennan and David Gudelunas
Crowds, Community and Contagion in Contemporary Britain
Sarah Lowndes
Global South Discourse in East Asian Media Studies
Dal Yong Jin
Bias, Belief, and Conviction in an Age of Fake Facts
Edited by Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner
For more information about this series, please visit: https://www.routledge.com
Bias, Belief, and Conviction
in an Age of Fake Facts
Edited by
Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner
LONDON AND NEW YORK
An electronic version of this book is freely available, thanks to the support
of libraries working with Knowledge Unlatched (K U). KU is a collaborative
initiative designed to make high quality books Open Access for the public
good. The Open Access ISBN for this book is 9781003187936. More
information about the initiative and links to the Open Access version can be
found at www.knowledgeunlatched.org.
First published 2023
by Routledge
4 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
and by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business
© 2023 selection and editorial matter, Anke Finger and
Manuela Wagner; individual chapters, the contributors
The right of Anke Finger and Manuela Wagner to be identifed as
the authors of the editorial material, and of the authors for their
individual chapters, has been asserted in accordance with sections
77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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explanation without intent to infringe.
British Library C ataloguing-i n-P ublication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
ISBN: 978- 1-0 32-0 3560-4 (h bk)
ISBN: 978- 1- 032- 03561- 1 ( pbk)
ISBN: 9 78- 1- 003- 18793- 6 ( ebk)
DOI: 10.4324/ 9781003187936
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Contents
List of contributors vii
Foreword xi
Acknowledgments xiii
1 Introduction: New Parameters for Bias, Belief and
Conviction: An Interdisciplinary Exploration of Personal
Positions and their Justifcation 1
ANKE FINGER AND MANUELA WAGNER
2 Political Conviction 11
MICHAEL P. LYNCH
3 Manifesto Moments: Conviction, Reasonable Dissent, and
“V anguards of the Future” 29
ANKE FINGER
4 Convincing Atmospheres? The Infuence of Diffuse Factors
on Conviction Building 44
CHRISTIANE HEIBACH
5 “I believe because it is absurd”; or, pseudoscience 59
JUSTIN E. H. SMITH
6 Conviction, Contemplation, and “M aking a Difference” 86
MATTHEW PIANALTO
7 Bad and Good Beliefs? On the Role of Conviction in Religion 99
ADRIAN HERMANN
vi Contents
8 The P sycho- Social Function of Moral Conviction 117
JENNIFER COLE WRIGHT
9 Moderating Conviction Through Civility in Education 134
DEBORAH S. MOWER
10 Intellectual Humility, Conviction, and Intercultural
Citizenship Education 156
MANUELA WAGNER AND MICHAEL BYRAM
11 In Pursuit of the Dialogic Classroom: Designing Spaces for
Conviction 181
JOHN SARROUF
12 Conclusion: Making a Difference for ( Self-) Refection and
Dialogue 202
MANUELA WAGNER AND ANKE FINGER
Index 207
Contributors
Michael Byram is a Professor Emeritus at Durham University, England,
and Guest Professor at Luxemburg University. He has worked in initial
teacher training and doctoral supervision and taught courses on intercul-
tural competence. He has researched bilingual and minority education,
residence abroad for language students, and intercultural competence in
foreign language learning.
Anke Finger is a Professor of German Studies, Media Studies, and Com-
parative Literature at the University of Connecticut, USA. From 2017
to 2019, she served as the Public Outreach Director for the “ Humility
and Conviction in Public Life” Project. She has published widely in the
area of Modernism ( Das Gesamtkunstwerk der Moderne, 2006; The
Aesthetics of the Total Artwork, 2011, edited with Danielle Follett), me-
dia studies ( Vilém Flusser: An Introduction, 2011), and in intercultural
communication ( KulturConfusão, 2015, edited with Gabi Kathoefer
and Christopher Larkosh), apart from many articles within all three re-
search areas. Her latest publication is entitled Shaping the Digital Dis-
sertation: Knowledge Production in the Arts and Humanities ( 2021),
edited together with Virginia Kuhn.
Christiane Heibach is a Professor of Media Aesthetics at the Institute of
Information and Media, Language and Culture at Regensburg Univer-
sity, Germany. Her research focuses on the epistemology of media, the
history and theory of multi- and intermedial art forms, the aesthetics
of new media, and the literary and media theories of the twentieth cen-
tury. She completed her PhD at the University of Heidelberg, Germany,
in 2000 with one of the frst studies on internet literature, followed by
numerous publications on media theory and the aesthetics of digital
and internet- based literature and art. In 2007, she fnished her habili-
tation on multimedia performing art forms at the University of Erfurt
where she worked until 2008. From July 2009 to April 2013, she di-
rected a research project on the epistemology of multimedia, funded by
the German Research Foundation, at the Karlsruhe University of Arts
and Design. She is the author, among many other books and articles,
viii Contributors
of Multimediale Aufführungskunst: Medienästhetische Studien zur
Entstehung einer neuen Kunstform (M unich 2010), and the editor of
Atmosphären: Dimensionen eines diffusen Phänomens (M unich 2012)
and Ästhetik der Materialität (2 015).
Adrian Hermann is a Full Professor of Religion and Society and Director
of the Department of Religion Studies at Forum “I nternationale Wis-
senschaft” of the University of Bonn, Germany. His work focuses on
Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, Documentary Film, Global
Christianity (e specially in the Philippines), Buddhist Modernism, and
the Religious History of the Globalized World. From 2002 to 2011 he
studied Comparative Religion, Drama Studies, Sociology, and North
American Literature in Munich, Bielefeld, and Basel. He received a PhD
from the University of Basel, Switzerland, based on a dissertation titled
“D istinctions of Religion – A nalyses of the modern discourse on ‘r eligion’
in world society and the problem of the differentiation of ‘r eligion’ in 19th
and early 2 0th-c entury Buddhist contexts”. In 2014/1 5 he was a Visiting
Scholar at Utrecht University, Netherlands, and Stanford University, USA.
Michael P. Lynch is a Board of Trustees Distinguished Professor of Philos-
ophy at the University of Connecticut. He is Director of the Humanities
Institute and Director of the New England Humanities Consortium. His
work concerns truth, democracy, public discourse, and the ethics of tech-
nology. Lynch’s newest book is K now-i t-A ll Society: Truth and Arro-
gance in Political Culture (2 019). His other books include The Internet
of Us: Knowing More and Understanding Less in the Age of Big Data,
In Praise of Reason: Why Rationality Matters for Democracy, Truth as
One and Many and the New York Times Sunday Book Review Editor’s
pick, True to Life. A contributor to the New York Times “T he Stone”
weblog, Lynch’s work has been profled in The New Yorker, The Wash-
ington Post and Wired (a mong others).
Deborah S. Mower is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the University
of Mississippi, USA, and specializes in moral psychology, applied eth-
ics and public policy, and moral education. She has special interests in
how moral education (i n particular) and a liberal arts general education
(m ore broadly) contribute to the development of moral sensitivity and
civility. Because of these interests, she mines literature from psychology
and philosophy (E astern, Western, and cross- cultural) for insights into
the teaching of ethics, the development of character, the nature of public
discourse, moral conviction, and the navigation of disagreement. She
has c o-e dited Developing Moral Sensitivity, Studies in Ethics and Moral
Theory (2 015), and Civility in Politics and Education ( 2012), among
many other publications.
Matthew Pianalto is a Professor of Philosophy at Eastern Kentucky Univer-
sity, USA. He is the author of On Patience: Reclaiming a Foundational
Contributors ix
Virtue (L exington, 2016) and several articles on virtue ethics and ap-
plied ethics. His 2012 essay “M oral Courage and Facing Others” was
awarded the inaugural Robert Papazian Prize on Themes from Ethics
and Political Philosophy by the International Journal of Philosophical
Studies. He has published articles on many topics in ethics, including pa-
pers on patience, courage, integrity, and tolerance, animal and environ-
mental ethics, and the philosophers Ludwig Wittgenstein and Friedrich
Nietzsche. His interests also include Animal Studies (A nimal Ethics) and
Environmental Sustainability and Stewardship (E nvironmental Ethics).
John Sarrouf is a c o-E xecutive Director for Essential Partners. Formerly
Director of Program Development and Strategic Partnerships, John was
frst exposed to EP’s work while studying in the Master’s program in
dispute resolution at the University of Massachusetts in Boston, USA.
Since then he has facilitated dialogues on issues such as sustainability,
gender, I srael-P alestine, religious pluralism, and technology and sexual-
ity. He served as the Assistant Director of Diffcult Dialogues at Clark
University, USA, where he taught dialogue to faculty and students, and
teaches in the Departments of Communication and Peace and Confict
Studies at Gordon College, USA. His private consulting work has fo-
cused on mediation and transforming confict in small work groups and
n on-p roft boards. To all of his work, he brings a background of 15 years
in the theater as an actor, director, and administrator.
Linda J. Skitka is a Professor and Associate Department Head at the Univer-
sity of Illinois at Chicago, USA, with a courtesy appointment in political
science. Her many academic publications cover topics such as the psy-
chological foundations and consequences of moral conviction, how atti-
tudes rooted in moral convictions differ in consequence and kind from
otherwise strong but n on-m oral attitudes, people’s everyday moral and
immoral experiences, the psychological underpinnings of the left-r ight
political divide, political intolerance, reactions to terrorism, distributive
and procedural justice, and automation bias. Dr. Skitka’s research has
been supported by research grants from the National Science Founda-
tion, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (N ASA), and
the Templeton Foundation, and she frequently presents her research at
national and international conferences (r ecent examples include the Soci-
ety for Personality and Social Psychology, International Society for Polit-
ical Psychology, International Society for Justice Research, and Asian
Social Psychological Association).
Justin E. H. Smith is a Professor of Philosophy in the Department of His-
tory and Philosophy of Science at the University of Paris, France. In
2 019–2 0, he was the John and Constance Birkelund Fellow at the Cull-
man Center for Scholars and Writers of the New York Public Library.
His latest book, The Internet Is Not What You Think It Is: A History,
