Mark Crispin Miller

Template:Short description Template:Infobox academic Mark Crispin Miller (born 6 November 1949<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>) is a professor of media studies at New York University.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He has promoted conspiracy theories about U.S. presidential elections, the September 11 attacks and the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting as well as misinformation about COVID-19 and vaccines.

Background and career

Miller has a doctorate in English from Johns Hopkins University.<ref name="nyt130601" />

In the introduction to Seeing Through Movies, Miller writes that advertising has affected the nature of U.S. films.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He has said that the multinational corporations in control of the U.S. media have changed youth culture's focus away from values and toward commercial interests and personal vanity.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

In a June 2001 profile by Chris Hedges for The New York Times, Miller called himself a "public intellectual" and criticized television news "that is astonishingly empty and distorts reality".<ref name="nyt130601">Template:Cite news</ref> In December 2020 he appeared on the Useful Idiots podcast and was praised by its host, Matt Taibbi.<ref>Template:Cite magazine</ref><ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Conspiracy-theory and disinformation promotion

In his social and political commentary, Miller frequently espouses conspiracy theories.<ref name="Dery">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

On social media and in other statements, Miller has promoted conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks;<ref name=":0" /> Miller is a signatory to the 9/11 Truth Statement<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and a member of the 9/11 Truth movement.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite news </ref><ref>Template:Cite news Template:Subscription required</ref> He dislikes the term "conspiracy theory", calling the phrase a "meme" used to "discredit people engaged in really necessary kinds of investigation and inquiry." In a 2017 New York Observer interview, he said anyone using the term "in a pejorative sense" is "a witting or unwitting CIA asset".<ref name="NYO2017">Template:Cite news</ref>

In 2017, Miller told a session at the Left Forum that Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had not dropped barrel bombs on his own people, that the allegation of a crematorium at Sednaya Prison was a hoax, and that the chemical attacks on Sunni areas were actually staged by the victims (with help from Turkey in the main 2013 case) to draw the U.S. into the war.<ref> {{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Election fraud conspiracy theories

In his book Fooled Again, Miller claims that the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections were stolen.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> He has since claimed that the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was stolen.<ref name=Dery />

In a 2024 Substack post, Miller gave a detailed statement about the U.S. presidential elections he believes were stolen.<ref name=silver>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> He claimed that the 2000 election was rigged in favor of George W. Bush over Al Gore to allow the war on terror, that the 2004 election was again rigged for Bush to ensure victory over John Kerry, that the 2016 election was rigged to allow Donald Trump to defeat Hillary Clinton but that Trump was legitimately reelected in 2020 (or just "elected", as Miller claims his first term in office was actually an "ascension" due its illegitimacy) and despite that was stolen to force him out of office and replace him with Joe Biden.<ref name=silver/> Miller also claimed that these elections were rigged by the CIA, the media, and both the Democratic and Republican parties (but for the last two, only against the other party).<ref name=silver/> He claimed that both parties routinely steal elections from the other and that to say only one party steals elections is partisan.<ref name=silver/> Miller also denounced the term "election denier" and its use by the media to describe himself and other people who claim the 2020 election was stolen, claiming that the term "election denier" is used to compare them "morally and intellectually" to "Holocaust deniers", a group of conspiracy theorists propagating the view that the Holocaust is a hoax, a racist and disproved view.<ref name=silver/>

9/11 hoax conspiracy theory

{{#invoke:Labelled list hatnote|labelledList|Main article|Main articles|Main page|Main pages}} In 2016, Miller gave a speech to the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth.<ref name=Dery/> After a "truthers" symposium on 9/11, Miller told Vice that the official explanations for 9/11 and John F. Kennedy's assassination "are just as unscientific as the ones that everybody feels comfortable ridiculing".<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre hoax conspiracy theory

In a blog post, Miller suggested that the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre was a hoax; in a subsequent interview, he denied that any children died in the shooting and voiced "suspicion" that "it was staged" or was "some kind of an exercise".<ref name=Dery/> Miller praised a Sandy Hook denial book by James Fetzer as "compelling" (a $450,000 defamation judgment had previously been entered against Fetzer, after the father of one of the murdered Sandy Hook students sued him for false statements made in the book).<ref name=Dery/>

Anti-vaccination and COVID misinformation

Miller has also screened for his students the anti-vaccination film Vaxxed, produced by disgraced<ref name=DeerarticleBMJ>Template:Cite journal</ref> former physician Andrew Wakefield (who was struck off the medical register in the UK for scientific misconduct).<ref name=":0" /><ref name="NYO2017" /> Miller has spread COVID-19 misinformation, including misleading claims about the efficacy of face masks and false claims that COVID-19 vaccines alter recipients' DNA,<ref name=Dery/><ref name="NBC 2020">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref> and believes the virus may have been an artificially created bioweapon.<ref name="Kennedy 2020 z826">{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Books

Miller's books include:

• Template:Cite book<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation

|CitationClass=web }}</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

• Seeing Through Movies (edited, 1990), Pantheon Books.<ref>Reviews: James E. Vincent

ETC, Template:JSTOR; Janet. Staiger, Journal of Communication, {{#invoke:CS1 identifiers|main|_template=doi}}; Publishers Weekly</ref>

• The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (2001)<ref>The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, W.W. Norton, Template:ISBN, 2001. Reviews: Jill Ortner, Library Journal, [1]; Elayne Tobin, The Nation, [2]; Publishers Weekly</ref>
• Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order (2004), W.W. Norton & Company, Template:ISBN.<ref>Reviews: "Early Evaluations of the Bush Presidency", Karen M. Hult and Charles E. Walcott, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Template:JSTOR; Michael A. Genovese, Library Journal, [3]; David Lotto, Journal of Psychohistory, [4]</ref>
• Fooled Again: How the Right Stole the 2004 Election and Why They'll Steal the Next One Too (Unless We Stop Them) (2005), New York: Basic Books Template:ISBN.<ref>Reviews: Publishers Weekly; Kirkus Reviews; Farhad Manjoo, Salon, [5]</ref>
• Loser Take All : Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 (IG Publishing), December 2008, Template:Isbn)

See also

• 2004 United States election voting controversies

External links

• Official faculty biography from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
• Official blog (inactive)
• Official Substack page (active)
• Template:C-SPAN
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