Lisa Fazio

Media Appearances

• Why Disasters Like Hurricanes Milton and Helene Unleash So Much Misinformation

  “You always see misinformation after disasters,” says Lisa Fazio, an associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University. “You don’t always see national political figures being the ones spreading that misinformation.”

  October 11th, 2024

• How to deal with misinformation about the assassination attempt on Donald Trump

  FBI officials are still looking into what motivated the 20-year-old gunman who attempted to assassinate former President Donald Trump on Saturday. Marketplace’s senior Washington correspondent, Kimberly Adams, speaks with Molly Dwyer, director of insights at PeakMetrics, and Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, about the false narratives surrounding the shooting and how to separate fact from fiction in the aftermath of a violent event.

  July 18th, 2024

• From the ’60s till now, TV news coverage of large-scale university protests doesn’t look so different

  While much has changed over the past 50 years, evening television news remains a prominent source of information for Americans. I am a scholar of psychology and study how people learn information from the world around them. I was struck by how the recent televised segments of college campus protests against Israel’s war in Gaza brought to mind images from other student movements in the United States – particularly the widespread campus protests in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

  July 10th, 2024

• How to Trust Your Brain Online

  Co-hosts Megan Garber and Andrea Valdez explore the web’s effects on our brains and how narrative, repetition, and even a focus on replaying memories can muddy our ability to separate fact from fiction. How do we come to believe the things we do? Why do conspiracy theories flourish? And how can we train our brains to recognize misinformation online? Lisa Fazio, an associate psychology professor at Vanderbilt University, explains how people process information and disinformation, and how to debunk and pre-bunk in ways that can help discern the real from the fake.

  May 27th, 2024

• How misinformation works on the brain, according to a psychologist

  With the 2024 elections less than a year away, a recent survey found 53% of Americans say they see false or misleading information online every day. Lisa Fazio, associate professor of psychology at Vanderbilt University, joins CBS News to unpack why people fall for misinformation -- and what it's doing to our brains.

  January 2nd, 2024

• YouTube is cracking down on anti-vaccine misinformation

  YouTube's action is potentially significant because of its impact on the misinformation ecosystem. "A lot of the vaccine misinformation you see on other platforms links to YouTube videos," said Lisa Fazio, an associate professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University who has studied misinformation. "It was a major loophole in our information ecosystem that it was so easy to post blatantly false information about vaccines on YouTube and have it gain large audiences."

  September 29th, 2021

• YouTube is banning prominent anti-vaccine activists and blocking all anti-vaccine content

  That dynamic is often overlooked in discussions about coronavirus misinformation, said Lisa Fazio, an associate professor at Vanderbilt college who studies misinformation. “YouTube is the vector for a lot of this misinformation. If you see misinformation on Facebook or other places, a lot of the time it’s YouTube videos. Our conversation often doesn’t include YouTube when it should,” Fazio said.

  September 29th, 2021

• The unwitting are the target of COVID-19 falsehoods online

  Sharing other people’s posts or photos out of context is a common tactic in the disinformation playbook because it’s an “easy, cheap way to gain credibility,” said Lisa Fazio, a Vanderbilt University psychology professor who studies how false claims spread.

  May 14th, 2021

• Biden’s plan to fight online harassment could set up new confrontation with tech companies, experts say

  “I think this particular task force plan aims to address a real need,” said Lisa Fazio, a Vanderbilt University professor of psychology and human development who studies the effects of misinformation. “We know these platforms are consistently the source of online harassment and threats to women, and there’s a connection to extremist consequences.”

  November 10th, 2020

• Election results misinformation, fraud claims threaten to distort Americans' views of the democratic process

  “We often remember the content of information while forgetting the source or who said it,” said Lisa Fazio, assistant professor of psychology and human development at Vanderbilt University, who has studied the effects of misinformation. “Over time, we might remember the allegations of voter fraud but forget that they came from an unreliable source.”

  November 6th, 2020