Fake news: Historical perspectives, contemporary challenges by Prof Jo Fox

Disinformation; misinformation; troll-factories; data-mining; hackers; bots; echo chambers; deep-fakes; meme-warfare; click-bait; catfish; pre-bunking; post-truth; fake news. Since 2016, the year of the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump, we have invented a whole new lexicon to describe what is happening to our media environment. But how new is the concept of ‘fake news’, and what might we learn from the past to help us to understand it? This lecture will explore how propaganda in its many forms works, why it is an inherently human behaviour, and how we confront one of the most complex societal challenges of our time.

Professor Fox joined Newcastle University in June of 2025 as the Pro-Vice-Chancellor for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Jo is Professor of Modern History specialising in propaganda, disinformation, and psychological warfare. She is the author of several books and articles on these subjects and regularly appears in the media to discuss the impact of disinformation in contemporary society. Most recently, she was PI on an AHRC funded project analysing disinformation during the COVID pandemic and Co-I (with colleagues in Durham) on a Leverhulme-funded project on the Political Warfare Executive. Jo has also advocated nationally and internationally for the value and importance of the humanities.

She is a National Teaching Fellow (2007), a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), and a Fellow of the Royal Society for Manufactures and the Arts (FRSA). From 2019-2023, Jo was Chair of the Humanities Early Career Research Awards panels at the Wellcome Trust.

Beginning her career at Durham University, Jo started as a lecturer in Modern European History. She became Durham History Department’s first female professor in 2010 and its first female Head of Department in 2016. In 2018, she became the first female Director of the Institute of Historical Research, the UK’s national centre for History, and in 2020, Pro Vice Chancellor (Research and Public Engagement) at the University of London and Dean of its School of Advanced Study, a national centre for the promotion and facilitation of humanities research.

A committed advocate for gender equality and social mobility in Higher Education, Jo has contributed towards Athena Swan success and established social mobility programmes in North East England.

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