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Cover -- Title Page -- Copyright -- Contents -- Preface -- Figures and Tables -- Summary -- Acknowledgments -- Abbreviations -- CHAPTER ONE: Introduction -- What Is Truth Decay? -- A Note on Terminology -- Objectives -- Methodology -- Organization of This Report -- CHAPTER TWO: Truth Decay's Four Trends -- Increasing Disagreement About Facts and Analytical Interpretations of Facts and Data -- A Blurring of the Line Between Opinion and Fact -- The Increasing Relative Volume, and Resulting Influence, of Opinion and Personal Experience over Fact -- Declining Trust in Formerly Respected Sources of Factual Information -- Data and Evidence for the Four Trends -- CHAPTER THREE: Historical Context: Is Truth Decay New? -- The 1880s–1890s: Yellow Journalism and the Gilded Age -- The 1920s–1930s: The Roaring Twenties and the Great Depression -- The 1960s and Early 1970s: Civil Rights, Social Protest, and the Vietnam War -- A Comparison with Today: Similarities and Differences -- Historical Analogues in Other Countries -- Summary -- CHAPTER FOUR: Drivers: What Is Causing Truth Decay? -- Cognitive Processing and Cognitive Biases -- Changes in the Information System -- Competing Demands on the Educational System -- Polarization -- The Question of Agency -- Summary: Truth Decay as a System -- CHAPTER FIVE: The Consequences of Truth Decay -- Erosion of Civil Discourse -- Political Paralysis -- Alienation and Disengagement -- Uncertainty -- Summary -- CHAPTER SIX: The Road to Solutions: A Research Agenda -- Research Stream 1: Historical and International Analogues -- Research Stream 2: Data and Trends -- Research Stream 3: Mechanisms and Processes -- Research Stream 4: Solutions and Responses -- Summary and Way Ahead -- APPENDIX: Additional Information About Our Methodology -- References

The cover story focuses on nine key issues in the 2012 U.S. presidential election--income inequality, health care costs, immigration reform, energy options, education, al Qaeda, Iraq, democratization in the Middle East, and China--while other stories cover the California court system, calorie counting, a National Guard program for high school dropouts, Americans' banking habits, and elections taking place this year around the world