Connor Mudrick -- News Media and Politics in the Reagan Administration

  I did not hear this presentation so I cannot say whether you have
  described the contents and the arguments completely accurately.  However,
  what you say is clearly and logically presented, so I'm actually pretty
  confident that you have given a good summary of what Shane Crowley said.

  The main comment I have is that what you (and he) are calling 
  "weaponization of information" seems to be just another name for 
  propaganda -- the efforts of governments to mold public opinion by 
  controlling the information the people get.  If you think about it that
  way, this is hardly a new idea.  In fact, it's something that has been
  going on ever since we have had powerful centralized governments.  I
  have the impression, then, that the issue might have been whether this
  was a new development *in the United States.*  But even there, if you 
  look back at war propaganda efforts in the US in WWI and WWII, you 
  will see that some pretty serious "weaponization of information" was
  going on there too (involving suppression of some information, distortion
  of other things, probably in the best interests of the war effort, so 
  hard to criticize now).  

  Content:  A

  Mechanics:  A