On Disinformation: How to Fight for Truth and Protect Democracy

Lee McIntyre's follow-up to Post-Truth moves from diagnosis to prescription: having established in the earlier book what has gone wrong epistemically, he turns here to the question of what can be done about it. The book draws on twenty years of research into science denial and misinformation to identify what actually works in countering false beliefs — and what, despite widespread use, consistently fails. His conclusions are evidence-based and often counterintuitive, drawing on psychology, communication science, and political science research to challenge both the naive optimism of fact-checking advocates and the cynical despair of those who think nothing can work.

The book's most important contribution is its argument that fighting disinformation requires engaging with people rather than just correcting facts — that effective counter-disinformation must address the identity, community, and emotional needs that false beliefs serve, not merely the informational deficit that rational models of persuasion assume. For practitioners designing counter-disinformation programmes or advising clients on communications strategy in contested information environments, McIntyre provides both the theoretical framework and the practical guidance for moving beyond fact-checking towards genuinely effective intervention. A short, rigorous, and practically important book.