What is Fake News?

By Katherine Rollings and Marshall McCann

Fake news is a growing problem — its speed, influence, and the dubious intentions behind its creation. Information overload has made it difficult to discern quality information from false information. Let’s go over what exactly is meant by the term fake news so that you will be better able to recognize it.

News fabrication intentionally misinforms readers. To create legitimacy, fabricated articles are published to look like official news articles, but the content has no factual basis. These deceptive articles rely on social tensions for success. Societal differences make people more vulnerable to believing and sharing these stories. This leads us to two commonly used and confused terms: disinformation and misinformation. Disinformation refers to the deliberate creation and sharing of information known to be false, whereas misinformation is the inadvertent sharing of this false information.

Photo and video manipulation are very common in our image-based society. Photo manipulation can create a false narrative, and misattributed images can drastically alter context, deceiving the viewer about what actually happened.

You may remember seeing this image being shared on social media during the recent US election, claiming thousands of mail-in ballots were thrown in a Californian dumpster. This image is actually from a 2018 state election, and shows old, empty envelopes in a recycling bin that were disposed of legally. Photo by Elijah Schaffer.

Propaganda is a manipulative form of communication that aims to influence and shape public perceptions. It is often associated with stories that are produced or sponsored by state actors, but propaganda can also be created by media, companies, and religious or activist groups. The use of social media in the deployment of political propaganda has been expanding; including foreign governments sponsoring propaganda in an attempt to influence the political outcomes in other countries.

Understanding different ways that fake news is presented is an important step towards awareness and recognition. It is essential to be cautious of what you read or see in order to protect yourself from falling victim to disinformation and to prevent it from spreading further.

Sources

Datta, B. (2017, June 26). Fake News is Spreading Thanks to Information Overload. Retrieved from NovaNext.

Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Zheng Wei Lim & Richard Ling (2018) Defining “Fake News”, Digital Journalism, 6:2, 137–153, DOI: 10.1080/21670811.2017.1360143

Lechman, E & Brighton, J. (2019, December 19). Political Propaganda & Social Media.

Sedeghi, M. (2020, September 30). Fact Check: 2018 empty mail-in ballot envelopes in California dumpster spur false fraud claims. Retrieved from USA Today.