In June 1950, Senator Margaret Chase Smith criticized Joseph McCarthy's anticommunist campaigns. She was the first of his colleagues to challenge his Red Scare rhetoric.

Conjugal visits were first allowed as incentives for the forced labor of incarcerated Black men, the practice expanding from there. Is human touch a right?

As outlets that welcome rational exchanges of ideas dwindle those that serve as echo chambers are exploding. What does that mean for free speech and the health of the US?

According to some political scientists, it's more about group identity than personal interests.

Researchers are concerned not only with our exposure to mis- and disinformation but with the depth of confidence people have in their inaccurate beliefs.

Scholars of politics and media have been tracking an ongoing collapse of trust in representative democracy's core institutions. What's at stake?

No other personality appeared more often on the cover of Mad during the first fifty years of the satirical magazine’s life.

How do innocuous words become insidious in the face of a public health emergency?

Some social scientists argue that dating and mating patterns may be the real drivers of polarization.

Canada has taken steps to address the potential for online misinformation ("fake news") in its upcoming election, but the internet changes rapidly.