Podcast

News Over Noise

Exploring the challenge of separating spin and click-bait from good journalism and why it matters

On this Page
Latest Episode
Seasons
About News Over Noise

Listen & Subscribe

News Over Noise is a co-production of WPSU and Penn State’s Bellisario College of Communications. Listen, download, and subscribe from your favorite podcast platform.

Latest Episode

Episode 410

Crowdsourcing Reality: How Participatory Disinformation Is Shaping the News

Misinformation is often described as something that’s created and then spread, but increasingly, it’s shaped in real time through participation. In this episode of News Over Noise, Matt Jordan and Cory Barker talk with Kate Starbird about participatory disinformation and how online audiences help produce, remix, and amplify information as it moves, blurring the line between observer and actor. Drawing on her research, Starbird examines how these dynamics play out across politics, crises, and everyday online life, and what they reveal about the growing challenge of building a shared reality in a platform-driven media environment.

Listen to Episode

Seasons

Season Four

2026

Season Three

2025

Season Two

2023-2024

Season One

2022-2023

About News Over Noise

News Over Noise is produced by the Penn State, Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications and WPSU. This program has been funded by the office of the Executive Vice President and Provost of Penn State and is part of the Penn State News Literacy Initiative.

Cory Barker Ph.D.

Cory is an assistant teaching professor in the Film Production & Media Studies department and co-host of News Over Noise. His research explores media industry convergence, focusing on legacy media's use of new technologies in production and distribution. His book, Social TV: Multi-Screen Content and Ephemeral Culture (2022), examines the U.S. television industry's failed social media revolution and won the 2023 Outstanding Book Award from the Media Industries Studies Interest Group. Before joining Penn State, Cory was a tenured faculty member at Bradley University and earned his Ph.D. from Indiana University.

More about Cory

Matt Jordan, Ph.D.

Matt is head of the Department of Film Production and Media Studies in the Donald P. Bellisario College of Communications at Penn State University, and Director of the News Literacy Initiative. He is host of the podcast News Over Noise. He writes and teaches classes about how today’s media systems have been altered by digital technology and what it means for democracy. He is executive producer of the documentary series HumIn Focus and author of dozens of articles and books on popular culture in America and Europe. His latest book is Danger Sound Klaxon! The Horn that Changed History.

More about Matt