Nolan Higdon

Life Higdon's education focused on History, Latin American Studies, and Critical Media Literacy Education.

In The Anatomy of Fake News: Critical News Literacy Education, Higdon argued that the U.S. has always wrestled with fake news. Rather than panic, democracies can mitigate the influence of fake news by making critical news literacy education available to the citizenry. Higdon warned that treating government regulation and censorship as a solution to fake news empowers corporations and government to determine what is true and what is false for citizens. Wayne Journell celebrated Higdon's history of fake news arguing that it “provides much-needed context for those struggling to understand both the complexities of fake news and how we arrived at the misinformation era we find ourselves in.” Journell wrote “Higdon is at his strongest when providing historical context.” However, Journell's “main criticism” of the book was Higdon's “underlying assumption that consumers of information want accurate information.”

In The Podcaster's Dilemma: Decolonizing Podcasters in the Era of Surveillance Capitalism, Higdon and Nicholas L. Baham III surveyed a 100 podcasts to determine how media makers are using podcasting as a space of decolonization. In a review, L. Dugan Nichols said Higdon and Baham “excel at categorizing the gamut of subversive podcasting, informing readers how the hosts of various shows “confront dominant ideologies” (p. 6) through inquiry, criticism, and “cultural reformulation” (p. 6)—which entails the telling of narratives from a subaltern position.” However, Nichols' summation of the text was mixed, “Ultimately, The Podcaster’s Dilemma contains ambiguities and omissions that prevent a more nuanced exploration into the world of leftist podcasting. However, academics conducting research in this area would be remiss to neglect this book. It is an essential read for anyone seeking insight on the resistant potential of a digital medium.” The Anatomy of Fake News: Critical News Literacy Education, University of California Press, 2020. MAGAcademy: How Corporatism Paved the Way for the Hostile Takeover of Higher Ed, Foreword by Henry Giroux; April 2026, Third Rail Communications.

Selected publications 'Returning to Neoliberal Normalcy: Analysis of Legacy News Media's Coverage of the Biden Presidency's First 100 Days," co-authored with Emil Marmol and Mickey Huff, In Robert Gutsche Jr. (ed), The Future of the Presidency, Journalism, and Democracy: After Trump, (London: Routledge, 2022). "The Critical Effect: Exploring The Influence Of Critical Media Literacy Pedagogy On College Students' Social Media Behaviors and Attitudes," The Journal of Media Literacy Education. 2021 "Curricular similarities and differences between critical and acritical media literacy: Supporting teachers' classroom inclusion," co-authored with Allison Butler and J.D. Swerzenski, Democratic Communique, 2021. "Time to put your marketing cap on: Mapping digital corporate media curriculum in the age of surveillance capitalism," co-authored with Allison Butler, Review of Education Pedagogy and Cultural Studies, 2021. "Today's Fake News is Tomorrow's Fake History," co-author Mickey Huff, Secrecy and Society Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, 2021. "What is Fake News?: A Foundational Question for Developing Effective Critical News Literacy Education." Democratic Communiqué, Vol. 29, No. 1, April 2020. "Rallying Over Balloting: The Origins of Millennial Activism." Journal of Critical Thought and Praxis 8, no. 1 (2019): 3.