Communication, Culture & Critique ISSN 1753–9129 ORIGINAL ARTICLE Civil Society Must Be Defended: Misinformation, Moral Panics, and Wars of Restoration Jack Bratich School of Communication and Information, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA In this article, I propose that we think of the recent concern over fake news, misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories as a moral panic. I revisit Stuart Hall and his co- authors’ concept, updating it in two ways. First, I focus on how the current panic has altered what they called “primary defners” (which now includes professional journalism, as a result of their own waning authority). Second, the new alliance of panic actors (journalism, technology companies, intelligence agencies, politicians, civil society organizations) are expressions of a crisis policing that is now martialized. I assess this new nexus in terms of a breakdown of civil peace into outright hostilities; as a counterinsurgency operation. I draw on Michel Foucault’s strategic analysis of power and society that challenges boundaries between politics and war. This nexus is waging what I call a war of restoration, one that has signifcant implications for dissent and oppositional knowledges. Keywords: Fake News, War, Dissent, Moral Panics, Misinformation, Post-Truth, Counter- insurgency doi:10.1093/ccc/tcz041 In late 2017-early 2018, a slew of news stories, primarily in the United States, artic- ulated a concern over the proliferation of something conventionally and repeatedly called “fake news.” 1 As a category, fake news covered such things as U.S. election- based misinformation, proft-motivated fctitious news stories, as well as conspiracy theories. In this article, I propose that we think of this acute concern as a moral panic over misinformation. Moreover, moral panics, in the Policing the Crisis tradition, prompt us to assess the current conjuncture as a “crisis of mistrust” and “crisis of post truth.” This new scenario calls for a revisiting and updating of the moral panics frame- work so well established in cultural studies. First, I focus on how the current panic has Corresponding author: Jack Bratich; e-mail: jbratich@rutgers.edu Communication, Culture & Critique 00 (2020) 1–22 © The Author(s) 2020. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of International Communication Association. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com 1 Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/ccc/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/ccc/tcz041/5803428 by guest on 12 March 2020