Review: Sedona International Film Festival Presents TRUST ME - A Powerful Call for Media Literacy

"The world you see is shaped by the information you receive."

It's a seemingly simple and obvious observation that opens what must be acknowledged as one of the most important documentaries of the decade ~ Roko Belic's TRUST ME. The film is a must-see wake-up call about the relentless and unsettling dissemination of fake news.

Sure, there have been several excellent features that have focused on the algorithmic abuses of the social media giants and their insidious influence on human biases (for example, The Great Hack, The Social Dilemma, The Creepy Line). However, none has delved so deeply and incisively as TRUST ME into the pervasive manipulation of information by discrete forces that aim to create social disruption and unduly influence human behavior.

The film addresses the following bothersome riddle in penetrating and illuminating journalistic style: If all scientific evidence indicates that the arc of history is a process of continuous improvement, why does negativity dominate today's news and galvanize fear-driven movements? How is it that, these days, nothing is as it seems?

Belic, whose award-winning films (Genghis Blues, Happy) explore intriguing facets of the human experience, exposes the forces that are driving this negativity and fueling social havoc. He reveals their underlying motivations. The film avails itself of an array of experts who attest to the dynamics of calculated misinformation and the dangers that the assaults on truth and journalism present to civil society.

Among this band of renowned experts is Steven Pinker, a cognitive psychologist and linguist whose book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress is an optimistic overview of human progress. In it, he demonstrates ~ with facts! ~ that the centuries-old phenomena of war, plague, and famine have abated and been replaced by significant upturns in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. He celebrates the current convergence between the best elements of reason and science, which historically have been at odds.

However, Pinker's world view is overshadowed by the relentless and multifaceted efforts to disseminate false information.

It is in chronicling and exposing these sources of information manipulation and their adverse implications that TRUST ME stands as an invaluable resource ~ a prescient warning that, in this age of the internet and social media, we need to be vigilant and discerning about the information we receive.

TRUST ME covers a wide terrain, revealing just how complex the problem is.

The film begins with understanding the profound impact of the Internet on everything. The techno-utopian idealism that generated the Internet ~ the promise of a democratized, enlightened, and interconnected global community ~ has been compromised by the commercialization and politicization of the medium.

To wit, Michelle Lipkin, the executive director of the National Association for Media Literacy Education, describes the business model that drives the Internet and its offspring ~ Google, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat ~ a model that depends on keeping the user hooked to the platform. Thus, the time that the user spends on the Internet is time being purchased by both advertisers and the companies that want to sell their products.

TRUST ME broadens the scope of its investigation and examines the exploitation of social media from a variety of angles. There's the viral spread of false claims about vaccination that feed a massive and irrational antivaxxer movement and lead a couple to make tragic decisions about the care of their autistic child. There's also the use of cyber-technology by corporate and political interests to exploit and exacerbate our biases. In due course, we're learning a new dystopian vocabulary ~ brain hacking or hijacking, social validation feedback loop, negativity bias, etc.

TRUST ME reveals the concerted efforts by authoritarian regimes to create divisive narratives, to control the minds of its citizens, and to suppress journalism; by international terrorist groups to recruit acolytes with false visions of an Edenic future; and, especially alarming, by Putin's Russia to exploit the divisions within the United States and undermine confidence in the system.

Indeed, the documentary presents a chilling landscape of disinformation. To the film maker's great credit, however, it also offers pathways and prescriptions to overcome the challenges. Inspired by Joe D. Phelps, the film's executive producer and the founder of the Getting Better Foundation ~ TRUST ME emphasizes the crucial importance of education as a force against the provocateurs of misinformation. It insists that we exercise discernment and critical thinking in evaluating online information. It encourages viewers to support the campaign for media literacy and the Foundation's corresponding petition urging Congress and the Department of Education to "rid the airwaves, internet and news outlets of mis - (and dis) information from irresponsible media sources...[and] to prepare citizens to evaluate the validity of messages and sources by supporting media literacy in K-12 education, university and journalistic curriculums."

The documentary closes on an uplifting high note ~ eight children of different backgrounds singing the inspired lyrics of Michael R. Martin's What's the Truth?

TRUST ME (90 minutes run time) is one of the featured screenings and a definite must-see at this year's Sedona International Film Festival (February 19th-27th).

Photo credit to Getting Better Foundation

Sedona International Film Festival ~ https://sedonafilmfestival.com/ ~ 928-282-1177 ~ 2030 W. State Route 89A, Suite B-2, Sedona, AZ

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