Mark Crispin Miller

Miller has a doctorate in English from Johns Hopkins University.

In the introduction to Seeing Through Movies, Miller writes that advertising has affected the nature of U.S. films.{{cite news|last=Rothenberg|first=Randall|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/03/13/business/the-media-business-advertising-is-it-a-film-is-it-an-ad-harder-to-tell.html|title=The Media Business: Advertising; Is It a Film? Is It an Ad? Harder to Tell|work=The New York Times|date=March 13, 1990|access-date=June 15, 2020}} 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.{{cite news|url=https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/cool/interviews/crispinmiller.html|title=Interview: Mark Crispin Miller|work=Frontline|publisher=PBS|orig-year=2000|date=2012|access-date=June 15, 2020}}

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".{{cite news|last=Hedges|first=Chris|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/13/nyregion/public-lives-watching-bush-s-language-and-television.html|title=Public Lives; Watching Bush's Language, and Television|work=The New York Times|date=June 15, 2001|access-date=June 15, 2020}} In December 2020 he appeared on the Useful Idiots podcast and was praised by its host, Matt Taibbi.{{cite magazine|last1=Taibbi|first1=Matt|last2=Halper|first2=Katie|url=https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-videos/useful-idiots-podcast-taibbi-stimulus-checks-larry-summers-mark-crispin-miller-1109062/|title=Stimulus Checks, Larry Summers, Plus Mark Crispin Miller on Academic Freedom|magazine=Rolling Stone|date=December 31, 2020}}{{cite news|last1=Taibbi|first1=Matt|title=Meet the censored: Mark Crispin Miller|url=https://www.post-gazette.com/news/insight/2021/01/11/Meet-the-censored-Mark-Crispin-Miller-NYU-professor/stories/202101100012|newspaper=Pittsburgh Post-Gazette}}

In his social and political commentary, Miller frequently espouses conspiracy theories.{{cite web |last=Dery |first=Mark |date=May 12, 2021 |title=The Professor of Paranoia: Mark Crispin Miller, who is suing his colleagues, used to study conspiracy theories. Now he pushes them. |url=https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-professor-of-paranoia |url-status=live |archive-url=https://archive.today/20231122041651/https://www.chronicle.com/article/the-professor-of-paranoia |archive-date=November 22, 2023 |access-date=May 18, 2021 |work=The Chronicle of Higher Education |quote=He thinks there is 'abundant evidence' that Biden stole the 2020 election.}}

On social media and in other statements, Miller has promoted conspiracy theories about the September 11 attacks; Miller is a signatory to the 9/11 Truth Statement{{cite news|last=Rossmier|first=Vincent|url=https://www.salon.com/2009/09/11/truth_petition/|title=Would you still sign the 9/11 Truth petition?|work=Salon|date=11 September 2009|access-date=19 March 2018}} and a member of the 9/11 Truth movement.{{Cite news|last=Kennedy|first=Dominic|title=Conspiracy theories spread by academics with university help|language=en|url=https://www.thetimes.com/world/middle-east/article/conspiracy-theories-spread-by-academics-with-university-help-9g09xtc73|work=The Times|date=June 13, 2020| archive-url = https://archive.today/20200613084959/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/conspiracy-theories-spread-by-academics-with-university-help-9g09xtc73 | archive-date = 13 June 2020 | access-date=June 14, 2020|issn=0140-0460|url-status=live|quote=The founders of the OPS include Piers Robinson, a former journalism professor at Sheffield, and Mark Crispin Miller, a media professor at New York University. Both are 9/11 "Truthers" who challenge the official explanation of the World Trade Center attacks. Professor Crispin Miller has shown his students the film Vaxxed, made by Andrew Wakefield, the disgraced British doctor struck off for falsely linking the MMR jab to autism.}} {{Cite news|last1=Keate|first1=Georgie|last2=Kennedy|first2=Dominic|last3=Shveda|first3=Krystina|last4=Haynes|first4=Deborah|url=https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/apologists-for-assad-working-in-british-universities-2f72hw29m|title=Apologists for Assad working in British universities|work=The Times|location=London|date=April 14, 2018|access-date=June 14, 2020|issn=0140-0460}} {{subscription required}} 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".{{cite news|last=Stutman|first=Gabe|url=https://observer.com/2017/07/mark-crispin-miller-nyu-professor-conspiracy-theories/|title=NYU Professor Uses Tenure to Advance 9/11 Hoax Theory|work=Observer|location=New York|date=July 26, 2017|access-date=December 5, 2018}}

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. {{Cite web |date=2017-06-05 |title=Syria Deniers: the New Scourge of the Extreme Alt-Left |url=https://www.huffpost.com/entry/syria-deniers-the-new-scourge-of-the-extreme-alt-left_b_5935a125e4b033940169ccc6 |access-date=2025-01-10 |website=HuffPost |language=en}}

In his book Fooled Again, Miller claims that the 2000 and 2004 U.S. presidential elections were stolen.{{Cite news|last=Kaminer|first=Ariel|date=2012-11-08|title=Long Day for a Professor Suspicious of Voting Machines|language=en-US|work=The New York Times|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/09/nyregion/professor-skeptical-about-integrity-of-electoral-process.html|access-date=2021-05-15|issn=0362-4331}} He has since claimed that the 2020 U.S. Presidential election was stolen.

In a 2024 Substack post, Miller gave a detailed statement about the U.S. presidential elections he believes were stolen.{{Cite web |date=2024-11-06 |title=Nate Silver sees Trump leading Harris by 8 points |url=https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/nate-silver-sees-trump-leading-harris-by-8-points |archive-url=https://archive.today/20241106180250/https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/nate-silver-sees-trump-leading-harris-by-8-points |url-status=dead |archive-date=2024-11-06 |access-date=2025-01-10 |website=archive.ph}} 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. 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). He claimed that both parties routinely steal elections from the other and that to say only one party steals elections is partisan. 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.

{{Main|9/11 conspiracy theories}}

In 2016, Miller gave a speech to the Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth. 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".{{cite news|last=Thompson|first=Alex|url=https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/pa499n/911-truthers-vow-to-never-ever-forget|title=9/11 'truthers' vow to never, ever forget|work=Vice|date=September 12, 2016|access-date=April 11, 2020}}

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". 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).

Miller has also screened for his students the anti-vaccination film Vaxxed, produced by disgraced{{cite journal |author=Deer B |title=Wakefield's article linking MMR vaccine and autism was fraudulent |journal=The BMJ |volume=342 |pages=c5347|year=2011 |pmid=21209059 |url=http://www.bmj.com/content/342/bmj.c5347.full |doi = 10.1136/bmj.c5347|doi-access=free }} former physician Andrew Wakefield (who was struck off the medical register in the UK for scientific misconduct). 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,{{cite web | author=NBC New York| title=NYU Student Calls for Professor's Firing After He Urged Masks Are Propaganda | website=NBC New York | date=2020-09-23 | url=https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/nyu-student-calls-for-professors-firing-after-he-urged-masks-are-propaganda/2631450/ | access-date=2021-10-14|quote=[He] said that the worldwide mask-wearing is propaganda peddled by the "left" and mainstream media}} and believes the virus may have been an artificially created bioweapon.{{cite web | last=Kennedy | first=Dominic | title=British academics sharing coronavirus conspiracy theories online | website=The Times & The Sunday Times | date=10 April 2020 | archive-url = https://archive.today/20200411083400/https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/british-academics-sharing-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-online-v8nn99zmv | archive-date = 11 April 2020 | url=https://www.thetimes.com/business-money/economics/article/british-academics-sharing-coronavirus-conspiracy-theories-online-v8nn99zmv | access-date=21 December 2023| url-status=live |quote=Another director, Mark Crispin Miller, a professor at New York University, has written that the coronavirus “may be an artificially created bioweapon”.}}

Miller's books include:

• {{Cite book|title=Boxed in: the Culture of TV|isbn=0-8101-0791-0|location=Evanston, IL|oclc=18017073|last1=Miller|first1=Mark Crispin|publisher=Northwestern University Press|year=1988}}{{Cite journal|last=Rabinovitz|first=Lauren|date=1991|editor-last=Marc|editor-first=David|editor2-last=Miller|editor2-first=Mark Crispin|editor3-last=Kaplan|editor3-first=E. Ann|editor4-last=Fiske|editor4-first=John|title=Television Criticism and American Studies|journal=American Quarterly|volume=43|issue=2|pages=358–370|doi=10.2307/2712935|jstor=2712935|issn=0003-0678}}{{Cite journal|last=Fromm|first=Harold|date=1989|editor-last=Levine|editor-first=Lawrence W.|editor2-last=Miller|editor2-first=Mark Crispin|title=Cultural Power|url=https://www.jstor.org/stable/41399517|journal=The Georgia Review|volume=43|issue=1|pages=179–188|jstor=41399517|issn=0016-8386}}{{Cite web|last=Peck|first=A.|date=1988|title=I Am a VCR, by Marvin Kitman and Boxed In: The Culture of TV, by Mark Crispin Miller: Chicago Tribune|url=https://www.scholars.northwestern.edu/en/publications/i-am-a-vcr-by-marvin-kitman-and-boxed-in-the-culture-of-tv-by-mar|language=English}}{{Cite journal|date=1990-06-01|title=Books|journal=Journal of Communication|volume=40|issue=2|pages=128–192|doi=10.1111/j.1460-2466.1990.tb02266.x|issn=0021-9916}}
• Seeing Through Movies (edited, 1990), Pantheon Books.Reviews: James E. Vincent

ETC, {{JSTOR|42577289}}; Janet. Staiger, Journal of Communication, {{doi|10.1111/j.1460-2466.1991.tb02325.x}}; [https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-394-57491-2 Publishers Weekly]

• The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder (2001)The Bush Dyslexicon: Observations on a National Disorder, W.W. Norton, {{ISBN|0-393-32296-3}}, 2001. Reviews: Jill Ortner, Library Journal, [http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=bth&AN=4581050]; Elayne Tobin, The Nation, [http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=a9h&AN=7015188]; [https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-393-04183-5 Publishers Weekly]
• Cruel and Unusual: Bush/Cheney's New World Order (2004), W.W. Norton & Company, {{ISBN|0-393-05917-0}}.Reviews: "Early Evaluations of the Bush Presidency", Karen M. Hult and Charles E. Walcott, Rhetoric and Public Affairs, {{JSTOR|41940149}}; Michael A. Genovese, Library Journal, [http://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/poli_fac/86]; David Lotto, Journal of Psychohistory, [https://www.proquest.com/openview/4ea6c86aa6fdb7efe65da7157ed9c405/1]
• 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 {{ISBN|0-465-04579-0}}.Reviews: [https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-0-465-04579-2 Publishers Weekly]; [https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/mark-crispin-miller/fooled-again/ Kirkus Reviews]; Farhad Manjoo, Salon, [https://web.archive.org/web/20110219013534/https://www.salon.com/books/review/2005/11/14/miller/index.html]
• Loser Take All : Election Fraud and the Subversion of Democracy, 2000-2008 (IG Publishing, December 2008, {{isbn|978-0978843144}})

• 2004 United States election voting controversies

{{reflist}}

{{Wikiquote|Mark Crispin Miller}}

• [https://steinhardt.nyu.edu/people/mark-crispin-miller Official faculty biography] from New York University's Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development
• [http://markcrispinmiller.com Official blog] (inactive)
• [https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com Official Substack page] (active)
• {{C-SPAN|46141}}
• {{IMDb name|id=1166386}}

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Category:1949 births

Category:20th-century American male writers

Category:9/11 conspiracy theorists

Category:American conspiracy theorists

Category:American male non-fiction writers

Category:American media critics

Category:American political writers

Category:Johns Hopkins University alumni

Category:Living people

Category:New York University faculty

Category:Northwestern University alumni

Category:American anti-vaccination activists

Category:COVID-19 conspiracy theorists