A New 'Trumpaganda' University Class Focuses On Donald Trump’s 'War On Facts'

The “war on facts, press and democracy” being waged by President Donald Trump’s administration is the focus of a new course at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Students taking the eight-week “Trumpaganda” class starting Oct. 22 will examine the Trump White House’s “disinformation campaign, its ‘running war’ with the mainstream news media, and their implications for American democracy,” the university says on its website.

“Previous American administrations have had a contentious relationship with the news media, but the Trump administration’s conflict with the press is different in strategies and tactics, challenging Americans’ tendency to think of propaganda as something that doesn’t happen in democratic societies,” the description adds.

Associate media professor Mira Sotirovic, who is teaching the class, told the university’s Daily Illini student newspaper it was “critical to learn how to detect propaganda and recognize propagandistic features of any communication, including presidential.”