MR. KOJO NNAMDIFrom WAMU 88.5 at American University in Washington, welcome to "The Kojo Nnamdi Show," connecting your neighborhood with the world. It's Tech Tuesday. The police never intended to provoke the wrath of the Internet. But when video surfaced of a police officer pepper-spraying protesters at a California college last year, the response from the Web was quick and brutal.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIWithin hours, a different, altered version was ricocheting around the Web, featuring the officer pepper-spraying everyone from the Founding Fathers to the Republican candidates for president. The images were fabrications, but they spoke to a deeper truth about how some people on the Web were interpreting the news. Journalist Russell Frank likens it to a kind of folklore built up through the jokes, urban legends and Photoshop images we forward over the Web.

MR. KOJO NNAMDIIn his new book, he explores the origins of folklore on the Internet. Russell Frank joins us in studio. He is the author of the new book "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." He's a professor of communications at Penn State University. Russell Frank, thank you for joining us.

PROF. RUSSELL FRANKYeah. Thanks for your interest. I appreciate it.

NNAMDIAnd I hope our listeners would also like to join the conversation and have interest in this topic. You can call us at 800-433-8850. Do you see any cultural or political significance in the jokes and visual memes we share over email and social media? 800-433-8850. You can go to #TechTuesday and send us a tweet, email to kojo@wamu.org. Or simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there.

NNAMDIEveryone knows some serial email forwarder, maybe a family member, a friend who fills up your inbox with jokes or photographed images, Photoshopped images, post them on your Facebook page. Sometimes, they are kind of welcomed distractions. Sometimes, they feel like, well, a nuisance. But you see something else in those communications, a kind of Web-based folklore. What is newslore?

FRANKNewslore is -- it's folklore, first of all, and it's a certain kind of folklore. It's jokes, the urban legends principally that circulates online and that responds to what's going on in the news. So I think of it as a kind of folk political commentary.

NNAMDIIt's folklore, but it also has to have some context. You have to know what's going on in the news in order to get this as folklore, correct?

FRANKIn a way, that's one of the more encouraging things about the phenomenon, I think, is that it shows that the people who are circulating -- who are generating this material, circulating it and then passing it on to the next person. They're paying attention. And just the -- given how many people don't pay attention to the news, as somebody who teaches journalism, I'm always immensely gratified when people are paying attention to the news.

NNAMDIWell, when the traditional media report on a news story adheres or tries to adhere to a set of conventions, there are standards of objectivity and fact-checking. There's also a reasonable expectation that stories will refrain from, oh, vulgarity, curse words, except in unique cases that stands, I guess, in stark contrast to newslore, which often features lewd jokes and consciously distorts facts. But just because it isn't factually accurate doesn't mean it's not important, right?

FRANKWell, I think it's getting at how people are reacting to the news, and I think people get very frustrated with the decorousness with which the news is presented to us on -- let's say, on broadcast news, on cable news where -- let's say a politician will say something that if you're sitting there at home, you want to hurl things at the television 'cause it seems so blatantly false or stupid.

FRANKAnd, of course, the anchor -- the reporter who's telling you about this can't say, well, of course, you know, this is a completely moronic statement or this guy is an out-and-out liar. And so, through this folklore, that's, like, that's where we get to vent our reactions.

NNAMDIIs it therefore possible for something to be factually inaccurate but true at the same time?

FRANKAbsolutely. I think of the image that -- when people were asking me what my book was about, I kept going back to this image that showed the two Presidents Bush during Hurricane Katrina, and they're bass fishing on a boat on the flooded streets of New Orleans. Now, the photo was a fake. You know, they took two different images, one of the Bushes bass fishing somewhere else, probably off of Kennebunkport or something, and the other is of the flooded streets of New Orleans.

FRANKAnd you put them together, and you have this false image. And yet, for many people, that expressed as succinctly and as powerfully as the best political cartoon, this idea that these guys were totally out of touch with what was going on in New Orleans.

NNAMDIYeah. It does sound like a political cartoon, except it was Photoshopped. We mentioned the visual meme that ricocheted around the Web last year involving a police officer used in -- using pepper spray. Is that comparable to...

FRANKYeah. It's a very similar kind of thing. You have to ask yourself, what was it about that image that captured people's imaginations? And, I think, to a great extent, it was the body attitude of the cop, that there was something so nonchalant about it. It looked like he was spraying Round-Up on the weeds in his garden. And so what's great about it is that the more context you put that guy in, the more different people he's pepper-spraying. Whether it's The Beatles on Abbey Road or, as you mentioned, the Founding Fathers, the funnier it gets. So it got -- it gains funniness with each new iteration of it.

NNAMDIWe're talking with Russell Frank. His new book is called "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." He's a professor of communications at Penn State University. We're inviting your calls at 800-433-8850. Is your inbox or Facebook clogged with newslore? Do the media accurately report how Americans really view the news? 800-433-8850 is the number to call.

NNAMDIToday's technology makes it very easy for people to create their own remixed versions of media. We can take a news story or video from a news clip and manipulate it using Photoshop and other editing software. We can share it over social media. But you actually became fascinated with this idea before the advent of YouTube and Facebook when people shared these things primarily through email or even through photocopies. Is technology changing the way we see ourselves in the news?

FRANKTo some extent, you know, some of these technological ways we have of sharing folklore, the folklore was the same. It's just the way of sharing it is different. So, you know, it's kind of in the same way that the telephone enabled people, you know, one in New York and one in Los Angeles to tell each other a joke as opposed to having to be in the same room, telling each other a joke, but the joke was the same.

FRANKAnd so, to some extent, the Internet is just an extension of -- it's the next thing after the -- from the telephone to the fax machine to the Internet. But there's also all this technology that's making possible certain kinds -- that -- making possible new folklore, certain kinds of things that you couldn't do before that you can do now, such as taking a clip from a movie and substituting your own dialogue or, you know, this whole remix idea, taking the multimedia folklore, so taking text, images, audio, video and mashing it all together to create a joke.

NNAMDIThe mainstream media don't do jokes and political humor very well, as you were pointing out earlier, especially humor that challenges taboos and veers into vulgar language. But it's also clear that we Americans really like political humor, and it's -- sometimes, scenes like "The Daily Show" or "The Colbert Report" or the satirical newspaper The Onion can capture the essence of news story better than the traditional media. Why do you think that is?

FRANKYou know, what's funny about that is the number of people who are getting their news from those sources. And it doesn't seem right 'cause it seems like you would have to know the news already to get what Jon Stewart is talking about, but you kind of back into knowing what the news is about just by watching him. And, again, it's the kind of thing where the world seems so absurd to us on so many levels that only an absurd treatment of it really seems to do it justice.

NNAMDIYeah. I was thinking that as I was watching "The Daily Show" last night, as a matter of fact. Here's David in Silver Spring, Md. David, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

DAVIDYeah. I just -- the importance of this newslore can't be underestimated because it is so -- frustrating to watch the news, which is mostly corporate-owned. As you said, the newscasters can't, I guess, say what's on everyone's mind half the time, so venues like Jon Stewart or that "The Scream," Edvard Munch -- "The Scream," that Photoshopped image, pepper-spraying the students was another one that was -- funny. But, I mean, like, this morning, I'm listening to the news -- the CIA analyst that supposedly gave away secrets, you know. I was...

NNAMDIYes.

DAVID...frustrated because what he really did is supposedly disclosed the fact that we're illegally waterboarding and torturing the al-Qaida people. And there's a big difference between giving away secrets and just America's breaking the law. So it's an interesting thing.

NNAMDIFor those of our listeners who don't know what he's talking about. This -- the individual who has been arrested was -- has been charged with giving information to the media about interrogators at Guantanamo Bay. I don't know if you care to comment, Russell Frank.

FRANKWell, not specifically about that. Yeah. I mean, I don't know. You know, I haven't seen anything circulating yet about that, but, of course, it's day one.

NNAMDIAnd we probably will be seeing things circulating about it pretty soon. David, thank you very much for your call. Yes. That's probably likely to drift into newslore by this evening's programs. Here now...

FRANKIt doesn't take long.

NNAMDIYes. The -- of course, the individual who was arrested is John Kiriakou. Here is Sam in Rockville, Md. Sam, you're on the air. Go ahead, please. Hi, Sam.

SAMHi. How are you?

NNAMDII'm well.

SAMGood. I was actually call and ask -- sorry -- ask if what your thoughts were on the origin of the term meme in relation to Richard Dawkins idea of an idea that actually transmits from person to person that propagates, especially in relation to the Internet, where you actually do have these viral ideas that are spreading and actually influence public opinion as well as political ideas.

FRANKYeah. I think it's this kind of self-replicating phenomenon. You know, meme as in -- I hope I'm not wrong about this. Somebody can call in and correct me if I'm wrong.

NNAMDIAnd they will, believe me.

FRANKIf connected to mimesis, you know, imitation, you know, that kind of thing, you know, that -- and which is just such a hallmark of folklore. I mean, how much folklore is old wine in new bottles, you know, that you keep circulating the same motifs, the same stories, the same jokes. You just keep updating them. I mean, you -- there are jokes that have been told about -- just about every president of the United States going back to Roosevelt.

FRANKAnd it's just whoever happens to be in the White House, you just substitute that person's name for the previous person's name. But there's nothing new about the joke apart from that.

NNAMDIThe history of this is fascinating. Sam, thank you for your call. We move on to Jim in Dale City, Va. Jim, your turn.

JIMYeah. I was just calling for the problems with Photoshopping. I've got a pretty good background in photography myself and done a lot of work with Photoshop. And I tend to notice things in photos or even videos that other people don't notice, stuff that seems to be out of place to me to the point that it has caused me a little chagrin. For instance, I don't know how many may have noticed it before me, but -- like, in the TV series, it used to be on "The A-Team." I noticed they had some of the largest machine guns available.

JIMAnd sometimes, they were shooting at a vehicle or people that were within 10 or 15 feet of them. But nobody ever got hit, except the first guy, the guy that got killed at the beginning of the show. I noticed quite often how the color of a glass of wine wanes during a scene.

NNAMDIYou make this point to say what, Jim?

JIM(unintelligible) that I used to have a philosophy and I believed half of what I saw, half of what I heard and all of what I know. But today, I'm not even sure if I know it.

NNAMDIOK. Thank you very much for your call, Jim. Jim says today he doesn't know even if he knows. As to what extent newslore, like a lot of folklore, tends to have a satirical intent?

FRANKYeah, again, it just gets back to how outrageous, how ridiculous the news can be and how it's always told. I think so much -- it's sort of a double response. Partly, you're responding to the news itself, and partly you're responding to the way the news is being presented to us. And so it's that deadpan delivery that sort of drives us crazy as well when we're hearing a preposterous things delivered in a deadpan sort of way.

NNAMDIYeah, I guess, also what our caller was talking about was the ability to spot fakes. How important is that if one is looking at the phenomenon of newslore?

FRANKWell, you're getting all these blurring of boundaries between the real and the fake, and people don't know where they are. You know, there are plenty of fake photographs where it's perfectly obvious that the photo is fake. And so there's no problem with that. I mean, I teach a journalism ethics class, and we do a whole section of the class on digitally-altered photographs, Photoshops, and, you know, there are examples. You know, if you put a horse's head on a person's body, no one says, wow, like, there's this, you know, an amazing hybrid creature, you know?

NNAMDIYou've discovered this new hybrid.

FRANKYou know it's a fake, and so there's no problem there. The problem is when you can't tell that's a fake, and there have been -- there's this hit parade now of fake photographs that are always talked about when we talk about what you cannot do journalistically with photographs. And one of the most famous ones was a photo that was taken in Iraq in the early going that showed a British soldier and there are some Iraqi citizens, and the photographer took two different images and combined them to make a more dramatic image.

FRANKAnd then some astute observers noted that a couple of the people in the photograph appeared twice, and that's how you could tell it was a fake. And then he was summarily fired. So it's very dangerous ground in the world of journalism where the expectation is that the images that you're seeing in the news are representations of what actually was happening somewhere in the world.

FRANKBut in the world of newslore, so much the better that confusion, you know? That if you -- and what's interesting is that some of these items, initially they circulate where people are saying, can you believe this? And people are assuming that it's real, and then the debunking begins. And then parodies of the debunked photo start to circulate. So the one that's on the cover of my book, for example, this character that is...

NNAMDIOh, yeah. We're going to get to him.

FRANK...referred to -- yeah, he's referred to either as the ground zero geek or as tourist guy. I prefer as the ground zero geek.

NNAMDITourist guy? I'd be for tourist guy. No, go ahead.

FRANKI like the alliteration of ground zero geek. But -- so here's this guy who was supposedly on the observation deck of the World Trade Center, and you see the plane coming behind him. And the initial emails that this was circulated with said, you know, you're not going to believe this photo, you know? Here's this guy, you know, has no idea that this plane is about to hit the World Trade Center.

FRANKAnd it circulates very rapidly, and then immediately, people started asking questions about it. Aviation freaks knew it was the wrong kind of plane. People who knew the World Trade Center knew that the plane was coming from the wrong direction. They knew that the observation deck wasn't open at that time of day. They were wondering why the guy was so bundled up on a, you know, late summer gorgeous morning and so on and so forth.

FRANKAnd above all, they wondered, how in the world could the camera have survived? And so then you started to see all these parody versions, and it's as with the cop pepper-spraying, you know, the different versions that began to circulate. The parody versions got funnier and funnier. My favorite one is of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man from "Ghostbusters" looming in the air behind this guy instead of the plane that was crashing in the World Trade Center.

NNAMDIAnd right next to that one, of course, is the one featuring Osama bin Laden in the very same picture.

FRANKYeah, the architect of the attack. Yeah.

NNAMDIIt's all a part of Russell Frank's new book. It's called "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." Russell Frank is our Tech Tuesday guest this hour. He is a professor of communications at Penn State University. If you have already called, stay on the line. We will get to your call. We still have lines open, so feel free to call us, 800-433-8850. Does the Web provide a more accurate view of how Americans view the news? 800-433-8850, or send email to kojo@wamu.org. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. It's Tech Tuesday. Our guest is Russell Frank. His new book is called "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." Russell Frank is a professor of communications at Penn State University. We're taking your calls at 800-433-8850, or you can simply go to our website, kojoshow.org. Join the conversation there. In this book, Russell, you dedicate a whole chapter to Hillary Clinton, specifically the explosion of anti-Hillary humor that spread across the Internet in the early days of email.

NNAMDIMuch of that humor was highly misogynistic, but you say it's still a very important historical document for understanding what was happening in the country at that time. Please explain.

FRANKWhen Hillary was running for president, I wrote a column based on these jokes about her, and I said, you know, I don't think she can be elected. If the newslore is any kind of reliable guide to attitudes out there in the land, she's unelectable because there is so much animosity toward her. And we never got to actually find out if that was true because Barack Obama got the nomination, you know, instead of her.

FRANKBut it's amazing how much venom was directed her way, and, even now, this stuff lives on. You would think that this all old news by now, but when -- just knowing I was going to come and talk to you today, I was checking around to see, OK, what's new in the world of newslore? And it's amazing how many of those Hillary jokes are still circulating in cyberspace, as well as Bill Clinton jokes, as well as George W. Bush jokes, even as well as Al Gore and John Kerry jokes. So this stuff, it's not going away.

NNAMDIWhat was the public reaction like when you wrote that piece in 2008, saying that she didn't have a chance to win based -- as you said, and I've got the jokes to prove it.

FRANKVery, very angry because people felt like I should not be perpetuating the jokes by telling them, but I take the attitude of, you know, sort of the scholar's approach. This is going on in the world, we should look at it. What does it mean? What is it telling us about people's attitudes? And it's revealing.

NNAMDIThis was a technology that allowed people outside the corridors of power in Washington who are skeptical about the mainstream media to communicate with each other about news. Here's what we got from Steven in Dupont Circle. He says, "Isn't this just another way for the general public to express its anger through humor because there are few other outlets?"

FRANKYeah, that's exactly what it is.

NNAMDIThat's what newslore is.

FRANKYeah, and the question is, does it do any good?

NNAMDIYes.

FRANKNow, is it just venting? There's this great term, slacktivism. Is that what this is, you know? Instead of actually doing something, you just -- you know, you sit at your keyboard, and you vent. But I think that the more people raise questions and challenge -- it's kind of an emperor's new clothes kind of thing. The more people point out that this guy who -- take -- not to pick on Newt Gingrich necessarily, but let's take Newt Gingrich as an example.

FRANKI think the more people point out, you know, this guy who claims to have all these brilliant ideas is stark naked, the more people will say, hmm, you know, maybe he is. Maybe it would really be a big mistake to vote for a guy like that.

NNAMDIGo back to the Hillary Clinton example because when the Clintons came to office in 1992, the Internet and digital communications were not as ever present as they are today. How did that evolve so that people outside the mainstream news media began to circulate these jokes online? Can you trace how that evolved?

FRANKInto a great extent, I think, it was the Clintons' and then George W. Bush's bad luck to arrive on the public stage at the very moment when this technology was taking off. And I think it actually hit its peak during the Bush years and then has begun to subside so much just 'cause it's not new anymore. It's not a new toy, and then you have the phenomenon of Colbert and Jon Stewart and The Onion, so there's so much sort of professional parody and satire going on.

FRANKAnd these guys, being pros, getting paid to do it, are so good at it that it's -- and I think a lot of people feel like we don't need to craft our own parodies because they're doing it for us. So there was, like, kind of golden age of this material.

NNAMDISo that golden age represented a kind of cross-over from the right attacking the Clintons in general and Hillary Clinton in particular. Then George W. Bush comes to power, and the left starts to use the same things against him.

FRANKYeah, it's interesting that...

NNAMDIHow was he generally characterized?

FRANKOh, pretty much the village idiot stuff. I mean, it's an amazing amount of -- and there are, too, the old wine in new bottles. A lot of Dan Quayle jokes are recycled as George W. Bush jokes, which then, in turn, got recycled, to some degree, as Sarah Palin jokes and also -- who's -- oh, Rick Perry. Now, the same kinds of jokes were being applied to him.

FRANKAny public figure who seems like maybe he's not quite as smart as people think a leader ought to be becomes the butt of those kinds of jokes. Well, what's interesting is that neither the left nor the right really has a monopoly on the use of this technology to vent their exasperation.

NNAMDIBack to the phones. Here's Matt in Largo, Md. Matt, your turn. Go ahead, please.

MATTHello, Kojo. I was listening to the broadcast, and what came to mind is there's such a number of media outlet -- there's just an unlimited number, and it continues to grow. Yet so many people hang on what to me would seem to be obvious untruths and myths and try and use them to their advantage, whether in the political field or in the business field or whatever manner, specifically in politics. How is it that people are unable to differentiate truth from fiction and newslore sometimes, and people fall for the most, for me, absurd conclusions? Thank you.

NNAMDIRussell?

FRANKI think that's a great question. I think there's a phenomenon I refer to as sort of the paradox of the periphery, which has to do with -- there's this enormous amount of distrust. We saw it last Thursday night when Newt Gingrich lead into John King during the debate in Charleston, and people are cheering wildly, you know, at the bashing of the mainstream news media.

FRANKAnd so because of the decline in trust of these news organizations that we always thought of as the most reliable purveyors of fact that there is this -- what goes along with that is this inclination to believe the ones that are the most peripheral. You know, you go to sort of, you know, whacko.com and say they've got the real story because they are not part of this corporatized media landscape.

FRANKAnd if, you know, if you want to know what's really going on, you -- and so wind up with this preposterous situation where the people who have the track record of bringing you reliable information are disbelieved, and the people who have no track record at all are the ones that people are falling for.

NNAMDIWell, by way of example, let me turn to this. President Obama and his family have also engendered that strong newslore reaction. If you Google the terms Obama, racist, email and apology, you'll find a surprisingly robust list of news stories involving elected Republican leader sending ill-advised and often profoundly offensive emails to their supporters. As they say, what's up with that?

FRANKYeah. I mean, I'm of the mind that this is a kind of, you know, coded racism that's being going on ever since he burst onto the scene and that, to use the fancy academic word, the sort of otherization of Barack Obama, you know, we can't actually say, you know, we hate him because he's a black man, but -- so we find other ways to get that message across. We can't trust him because we're not convinced he was born in the United States. We're not convinced that he's not a Muslim.

FRANKWe're not convinced he's not a socialist. I mean, all of these different ways to say he is not like us, he is not one of us, and therefore, he should not be leading us in Washington.

NNAMDIWhere is there an intersection, if you will, of newslore that is not necessarily factually accurate but true and newslore that is both factually inaccurate and wildly untrue?

FRANKI have to think about that.

NNAMDIWell, I just thought of it myself actually.

FRANKSay that again.

NNAMDIBecause what you're describing falls into the latter category. The emails that I mentioned -- or the phenomenon of if you Google Obama and apology and racist -- come from people who are saying things that are both inaccurate and clearly untrue, but in the minds of the recipients of that kind of newslore, that kinds of a falsification, it's true as far as they're concerned.

FRANKRight. And, again, this gets back to what I was saying about the distrust of the mainstream media. You know, if you were to say, well, don't you think The New York Times would be reporting that if they were true? It's like, no, of course, not. They are in on it. Don't you see?

NNAMDIYes, you are exactly right. That's how that works. Matt, thank you for your call. Here is Stan in Gaithersburg, Md. Stan, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

STANThank you. My concern is the media, the large media nowadays, in reporting, do an awful lot of editorializing in their reporting. They give their opinions about what somebody says. You know, they say the obviously irritated man, and they don't know that he wasn't obviously irritated. He ran three blocks to get there. They put their own feelings into it, and people believe it. And it concerns me that the laxity of following the rules in journalism.

NNAMDIAs a journalism professor yourself, Russell, why...

FRANKYeah, this kind of moves away from newslore but gets into -- you know, I teach this journalism ethics class, and mostly what we're doing, of course, is criticizing the news media. But I will often find that the criticism of the news media is so extreme and over the top that I wind up defending them a good deal of the time. And one area where I do defend the news media a lot is in the area of bias. I think what we often see is reader bias rather than reporter bias. In other words, you have a bias yourself.

FRANKSo let's say, for example, you're a rabidly pro-Israel. Well, if you are rabidly pro-Israel or rabidly pro-Palestinian -- whichever way you want to go, it doesn't really matter for this example -- you'll see any kind of attempt at an even-handed account to be bias toward the side that you don't like because you feel like -- decide you don't like, doesn't deserve any kind of even-handed treatment because they're so obviously the evil ones in this matter. And that's -- so this is the most sort of black and white kind of example.

FRANKBut I think there is so much of that that, any time you give any kind of a fair hearing to a side that the viewer or the listener disagrees with, you're showing a bias toward the other side.

NNAMDIStan, what do you say about that?

STANI agree with you on that. But I was a newsman myself for about nine years in California way back in the '60s, and we couldn't even say our main sources because -- but we had the name of the sources, and it had to go through our editorial board before that could appear in print. I think the rules have changed over the years, and I think some people do think they have the right to editorialize in giving -- especially on TV.

FRANKYeah, I agree.

STANThe more so that even -- they editorialize where they shouldn't be.

FRANKYeah, I agree with that. And part of it -- of course, I have my own bias toward print journalism, which I think is generally superior to broadcast journalism, so -- but, yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot more tolerance of, an expectation of, let's call it, attitude in reporting than used to be tolerated once upon a time.

NNAMDIStan, thank you very much for your call. We move on to Joe in Manassas, Va. Joe, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

JOEOh, hi, yeah. Thank you. I want to point out -- I want to address this issue that your guest raises about this coded language all the time. You know, I've listened to this for 40 years or 45 years now, and it really gets tiring from the last. It's just a mechanism to use to stifle legitimate debate. When someone comes out and says you should have a paycheck instead of food stamps, there is absolutely nothing racial about that.

JOEYou can say all you want, that it's coded, but when you say it's coded, you are attributing very bad intent to the speaker, and you're trying -- of that statement, and you're trying to stifle debate. You also mentioned biases. The press does intentionally lie a lot, but every single reporter -- conservative, liberal or whatever -- is biased in their issue selection. So look at the debate that started, you know, what (unintelligible) replying to, that John Cox (sic) from CNN was biased when he picked that to be the first statement. He picked...

NNAMDIWell, allow me to have Russell Frank respond.

FRANKI think you could question John King's judgment in opening the debate with that question.

NNAMDIWell, I just happen to -- allow me to observe that it was the top news story of the day on every -- in all media all around the country. Had you noticed that at all, Joe?

JOEAnd that was a bias by the mainstream media. They picked the story. There was a lot of stuff going on that day. There was stuff in Iran. There was stuff in Russia. There was stuff here. But, you know, you laugh. You laugh...

FRANKNo, no, no. No. I'm laughing -- no. I agree with you on that. I think the choice of stories, what goes on the front page, what constitutes a story and what isn't a story, I mean, every step of the way in the production of news involves the making of decisions. And that's true. And different people are going to make different decisions about what's newsworthy, and we could have a very long debate about...

NNAMDIBut it's also why you think newslore is an important part of pop culture, is it not?

FRANKAbsolutely.

NNAMDIThank you very much for your call -- I don't know if there's any other part of Joe's issues you'd like to respond to.

FRANKWell, you know, which is, do we want to get into talking about news media intrusions into private life, and why this was a legitimate story. Again, it kind of gets us off topic. I mean, it's an interesting topic. It's one I talk a lot about in my ethics class, and, you know, my general -- my basic intention about this. It's not so much the private behavior that concerns us. It's the hypocrisy, I think, that concerns us.

NNAMDIAnd then, Joe, the first example you used, it is my understanding, and correct me if I'm wrong, that the reference to a paycheck instead of food stamps was in response to a question about advice to the black community or to black leaders?

JOEAbsolutely, it was, but it applies to other places, too. There's nothing that says that that's a racial response. He was asked a question specifically about that. And this has come up for -- this has been going on all along. The left constantly decide to say, oh, somebody used the word lazy. Well, he must be a racist. Somebody used the word responsibility. Oh, what he really...

NNAMDINo. But I'm interested -- no. I'm interested, though, in, Joe, what do you see as the correlation or the relationship between blacks and food stamps?

JOEBetween the race and food stamps? Absolutely nothing. It has to do with poverty. It has -- there is nothing, inherently, in an African-American race that makes them -- somebody more inclined for food stamps or others. That is...

NNAMDII'm not sure you're getting my question, and I don't want to take away from Russell Frank's. But in your mind, do you associate the African-American community in the United States with poverty?

JOENo. No. I mean, they're -- you know, it's a group that is probably to buy it more, but it has no more -- there are more whites in poverty than there are African-Americans. There's probably more Hispanics...

NNAMDISo why answer a question about the African-American community by pointing to poverty?

JOEIt was about helping the community. And, yes, I said it's disproportionately effective, but it has -- it's nothing racist. I mean...

NNAMDIWell, I'm not saying there was anything racist about that. I just wanted to explore your thinking on the issue. And I'm afraid we have to take a short break. And when we come back, we'll continue our conversation with Russell Frank. Joe, thank you very much for your call. If you are on the line, stay on the line. We will get to your call. We still have a few lines open, 800-433-8850. It's Tech Tuesday. Russell Frank's book is called, "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." I'm Kojo Nnamdi.

NNAMDIWelcome back. We're having a Tech Tuesday conversation with Russell Frank. He is author of the book "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." He's a professor of communications at Penn State University. We're taking your calls at 800-433-8850. Do you see any cultural or political significance in the jokes and visual means we share over email and social media? 800-433-8850 or send email to kojo@wamu.org. Here is Joe in Baltimore, Md. Joe, you're on the air. Go ahead please.

JOEHi. Thanks, Kojo. I just wanted to point out, you know, and I find myself -- it's kind of funny defending the media here, but there are a lot of ways -- a lot of the media we consume that is chosen by the audience. I mean, such as the Internet, it's the stories that get the most quick that become the headline. So I think it's interesting that people like to keep saying the media this, the media that. They're painting it this certain way. But, I mean, we paint the picture also by just consuming it and making it the headline when we pay attention to those stories.

NNAMDIRussell Frank, new technology has made it possible to access information from a variety of sources, including new and highly partisan outlets and online communities. Some media critics have worried that these outlets are creating a kind of echo chamber where we only hear views on fake news that reinforces our already held world view. Is newslore a part of that problem because that's what I seem to hear Joe on the phone saying, suggesting?

FRANKYeah. I think that's true. You know, as I was saying before, there is newslore of the left to some degree. There is newslore of the right. And, you know, never the twain shall meet although there are some websites that are equal opportunity in that sense. I mean, they provide the jokes from whatever spot on the political spectrum they're coming from. But, yeah, you can get into this mode of just hearing views that reinforce what you already think rather than challenging what you already think

NNAMDIJoe, thank you very much for your call. I'd like to return to a more recent newslore. The advent of YouTube and Internet video has created a unique outlet for satire. One of the more amusing means in recent years involved a German language movie called "Downfall." The original version told a story of Adolf Hitler in his final days, but some people have used a clip from the movie and given it new subtitles. What do you make of this?

FRANKI think just because the one scene -- if you haven't watched any of these, there's a scene where Hitler is ranting. You know, it's sort of -- it's the beginning of the end, I guess, and his things are not -- I forget what the specific context is, but, obviously, he gets bad news from the front. You know, things are not going well. And he launches into this, you know, maniacal tirade.

FRANKSo it's -- what could be more fun -- so, first of all, it's in German so you can -- so it lends itself to subtitling. And it's not as if, like, there is an English audio track that you have to overwrite. You just have to provide the subtitles and perceive this is what he is really saying. And there have been -- just football alone, there have been countless versions of this. You know, take the name of your football team, and he's ranting that your team lost. I mean, for Penn State people, you know, I teach at Penn State. There was one very funny one.

FRANKIt was all about Ohio State and how Ohio State, you know, couldn't beat, I guess, USC, in the Rose Bowl, you know? And he starts -- from there, he goes into this rant about how come the Big Ten, you know, can't beat anybody outside the Big Ten, and somebody makes some comment, well, you know, Penn State did this, you know? And he launches this and says, Penn State? You call them a football team?

NNAMDII like some of the other examples. There was Hitler goes berserk when Alaskan Gov. Sarah Palin resigns from office. Hitler becomes furious after hearing Kanye West's interruption at the Video Music Awards in 2009 when he grabs the statue. Hitler finds out he has to go see "Don't Mess with Zohan" because tickets are, for all the other movie screenings, sold out. You can interpret it...

FRANKIt's totally all-purpose. Anything you want to rant about, you can just have Hitler giving that rant.

NNAMDIWe mentioned earlier the similarities between digital manipulations of images and political cartoons. As it happens, your most recent work involved the work of one of my own favorite cartoonist, Herblock, the iconic political cartoonist for The Washington Post for so many years. How has political satire evolved since Block's days?

FRANKHerblock was the master of, you know, this still unanimated drawing, you know, which was the dominant mode going back centuries, going back to, you know, to Europe. And it's black-and-white drawings, and they're -- they packed a wallop. I mean, this guy, you know, his productivity and his genius, I mean, went on, you know, for 50 years daily. I mean, for a while -- I think for a long time he produced six of these a week. I mean, it was just mind-boggling, the output. And...

NNAMDIInto his 90s, deep into his 90s. Yes.

FRANKYeah. He died at the age of 92. He was still working. You know, he was in the hospital at the end of his life, and Donald Graham went to see him and, you know, gently proposed, perhaps you would want to cut back, you know, a little bit. And he goes, I agree to cut back -- I think three a week, or something like that, instead of his usual five or six.

FRANKBut, you know, the next generation of cartoonists -- like Ann Telnaes is an example, and there are others -- are beginning to animate their cartoons. And so that starts to get into this sort of hybrid genre that's more like, you know, just a conventional animation.

NNAMDIWhat do you think Herblock would make of all of this newslore that's going around?

FRANKYeah. I think it's very part and parcel of...

NNAMDII think he'd find it appealing.

FRANK...his worldview, yeah, and how he looked at things. So I think he would get a kick out of it.

NNAMDIHere's Inga (sp?) in Rio Grande, N.J.

INGAYes.

NNAMDIInga, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

INGAHi. I thought that this applied to your discussion on newslore. About when was the word entitlement became a dirty word? Entitlements, I always thought, were things that you earned, you had worked for or contracted for, things like that, but, all of a sudden, it's -- when they're talking about it, it sounds like you're bad if you expect to have an entitlement.

FRANKYeah. It kind of reminds me when Gingrich accused Barack Obama of being anti-colonial. And I said, well, since when was colonialism considered a great thing? It's a similar kind of thing. You turn something that seems like...

NNAMDIThe Kenyan anti-colonial view...

FRANKYeah.

NNAMDI...to the presidency of the United States.

FRANKYeah. That seems like a good thing, but, of course, that gets into my politics. We probably don't want to go there.

INGASorry?

NNAMDIInga, what is your own view about how entitlement should appropriately be viewed?

INGAI'm sorry? It seems to be that it has changed from something that you earned, that you've worked for, that you either contracted for in your job. And all of a sudden, it's -- entitlements are being attacked, and I don't know. I sort of thought that that was something that I had worked for all my life.

NNAMDIWell, words change connotation over time, and I guess that's one that is changing. Inga, thank you very much for your call. I do have to mention this because you are a professor at Penn State University, which, unfortunately, has become inseparable from the ongoing child sex abuse involving former football coach Jerry Sandusky. And this week, legendary head coach Joe Paterno died. How is the campus reacting?

FRANKI was really struck how somber and how quiet my classes were on Monday, you know, the day after the news came out that he had died. They really loved this man, generally speaking...

NNAMDIJoe Pa.

FRANK...the students at Penn State. And it's a fascinating thing to think about, you know, that here's this old guy who's about as un-hip as he can be, but it's almost like he was so un-hip he was hip, you know, that there was something about his un-changingness and what he stood for in terms of whatever their idea of what tradition means, that the uniforms of the team never changed, his approach to football never changed, his look.

FRANKHe pretty much looked exactly the same in 2006 as he did in 1966. They loved that. They felt like it's -- it made Penn State a special place, you know, sort of world apart. And they -- you know, whatever one might think about whatever he did or didn't do in response to the allegations against Jerry Sandusky, the students at Penn State really revered him. And that's really just a striking thing to see.

NNAMDIThe story, as a whole, has been nothing short of a disaster for your employer, the university. But it's also provided, hasn't it, a unique learning experience for your journalism students?

FRANKYeah, front row seat. It's been amazing. In contrast to how they were on Monday, when they were so quiet and somber, they had so much to say back in November, and especially around the news media coverage of the disturbance that happened downtown when it was announced that Joe Paterno was fired, and the students took to the streets. And they felt like they were grossly misrepresented. So you have these students who are thinking about going into the journalism world themselves, and yet they're feeling sort of appalled by the journalism.

NNAMDIThe irony of it, the Jerry Sandusky investigation story was broken by a Penn State graduate, a journalist.

FRANKThat's right. Yeah, yeah. Sara Ganim, who gets her props, I wouldn't be surprised if she wins a Pulitzer Prize for her work on the story.

NNAMDIWe're hoping to have her on here next month. We're working on it even as we speak. Here is Sean in Annapolis, Md. Sean, you're on the air. Go ahead, please.

SEANHey, Kojo. How are you doing?

NNAMDII'm well.

SEANThanks for putting me on. Talk about the Barnum & Bailey effect. A lot of the news, there was some talk. You know, you have to be fair and balanced and show both sides, but it's like, you know, the -- when the circus would sew the bones of a monkey onto the bones of a fish and say, look, we got him. You decide for yourself, you know? Come and solve the controversy.

SEANWell, there really is no controversy, and it's created. And they are just trying to, you know, get their viewers to come and voice their side, but their side doesn't exist. We know it's a fake. We know it's a lie. It reminds me of what happened with Newt, you know?

NNAMDII'm not sure I understand whose side you're saying is a fake and a lie.

SEANWell, for instance, there's a lot in the news, but the thing with Newt Gingrich kind of reminded me of it, where Newt Gingrich managed to flip, say, you know, turn it over onto the media. So the controversy becomes, oh, the media is so, you know, so inappropriate when, actually, the question that he asked was completely appropriate, Newt's hypocrisy.

NNAMDIOh, I see.

SEANBut that happens with everything, like with evolution. You decide for yourself. Well, we don't need to decide. We already know that, you know, that the science already tells us what it is. With global warming, you know, you decide the -- we don't -- there's a huge consensus of, you know -- so the media has this way of creating this controversy where none exists, just like Barnum & Bailey...

NNAMDIWe're almost out of time. I'll have Russell Frank respond.

FRANKWell, I think you raise an important point, which is we're at this cultural moment where it's almost as if there are no facts anymore, like everyone is entitled to their own opinion. I remember when it became pretty clear, for example, that Saddam Hussein did not have weapons of mass destruction, and you would confront people who supported the invasion of Iraq. Even when presented with that evidence, they say, well, I think he does.

FRANKAnd you say, well, you know, at a certain point, it's really not a matter of what you or I think. Either he does have them or he doesn't have them. And, yes, you know, facts are slippery little devils, but it still behooves us to try to get hold of them as best as we can.

NNAMDIRussell Frank. He's the author of "Newslore: Contemporary Folklore on the Internet." He's also a professor of communications at Penn State University. Russell Frank, thank you so much for joining us.

FRANKThanks. It was a pleasure. It was fun.

NNAMDIAnd thank you all for listening. I'm Kojo Nnamdi.