Chapter 1. LaunchPad for Media and Culture 11e

Extended Case Study: Fake News

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You must read each slide, and complete any questions on the slide, in sequence.

Fake news, which dominated the real news headlines for much of 2016 and 2017, is unfortunately about as old as the United States itself. And it got its start, not surprisingly, in politics.

The presidential election of 1800 pitted two bitter rivals against each other: incumbent president John Adams of the Federalist Party (whose members included George Washington and Alexander Hamilton) and his challenger, Vice President Thomas Jefferson of the Democratic-Republican Party (whose members included James Madison and Aaron Burr).Reference 1.

Many of America’s earliest newspapers were either the commercial press, which catered to the merchant class, or the partisan press, which fervidly argued for the platform of the political party that subsidized the paper. You might guess that it was the partisan press that resorted to fake news. As the presidential campaign of 1800 grew more heated, some Federalist newspapers began to publish stories that Jefferson had died.Reference 2. Eventually the truth came out—although at the slow pace of newspaper distribution at the time—and Jefferson ultimately won the election.

Though America has changed in many ways since the election of 1800, the fake news that stemmed from it is still affecting both politics and society today. However, the specifics of what constitutes fake news have been muddied in a world where the president of the United States has been known to declare any press he disagrees with “fake news.” So what exactly is fake news?

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Value of reference one. The approval of the Twelfth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution in 1804 later enabled presidential and vice presidential candidates to run as a ticket, thus avoiding the awkward situation of Adams and Jefferson, where the elected president and vice president were from opposing parties.
Value of reference two. “Fit to Print? A History of Fake News,” BackStory, February 20, 2017, http://backstoryradio.org/shows/fit-to-print/.

Types of Fake News

As technology continues to grow and change, fake news has grown in sophistication and speed and is now a phenomenon that spans five general categories of activity:

Satirists
Hoaxes and Hucksters
Opinion Entrepreneurs
Propagandists
Information Anarchists

The five types of fake news constitute a continuum, from most useful to democracy (satire) to most harmful to democracy (information anarchy).

Types of Fake News (continued)

Satirists

This category includes the recent work of Saturday Night Live, The Daily Show with Trevor Noah (which Comedy Central promoted as “America’s Most Trusted Name in Fake News”), and The Onion.

Satire wears its “fake news” badge openly. When done well, satire can also be extremely effective as a critical voice in the news.

Hoaxers and Hucksters

Hoaxers and hucksters, who create and distribute intentionally false news stories, are generally harmless (there is entertainment pleasure in having one’s gullibility tested), but can also involve real harm, particularly with the financial hoaxes of Ponzi schemes or, more recently, Bernie Madoff.

Opinion Entrepreneurs

These are media outlets—from Web sites and talk radio to newspapers and cable news – that seek to influence the news and public agenda, often with false or inaccurate stories.Reference 3.

The “birther” story questioning President Barack Obama’s national citizenship was (and for some, continues to be) a case of opinion entrepreneurialism and became a major news media story only after the continuing allegations of then-citizen Donald Trump and several birther Web sites.Reference 4.

Propagandists

Propagandists are official state actors who spread a coordinated, partisan message meant to propagate a point of view. Today’s North Korea, China, or Russia would be the most easily identifiable propagandists, with a secure hold on major media outlets and a sophisticated system of news and media that supports the goals of their regimes.

Information Anarchists

Information anarchists are actors who want to stir the pot, make people angry using outrageous statements and allegations, and create doubt and mistrust (sometimes called “gaslighting”) to undermine the legitimacy of genuine news and to create the perception that truth might never be determined. Internet trolls—people who post inflammatory or harassing messages and memes to elicit emotional reactions and sow discontent—are information anarchists.

Value of reference three. Peter Dreier and Christopher R. Martin, “How ACORN Was Framed: Political Controversy and Media Agenda Setting,” Perspectives on Politics 8, no. 3 (2010): 761–792.
Value of reference four. Vincent N. Pham, “Our Foreign President Barack Obama: The Racial Logics of Birther Discourses,” Journal of International and Intercultural Communication 8, no. 2 (2015): 86–107.

How to Spot Fake News

In an era of fake news, there are new reasons for optimism: All around the globe, there is now high interest in how to recognize fake news.Reference 5. The best way to judge is to read/watch/listen to the news and test its adherence to these elements of journalism, which form the foundation of the “how to spot fake news” lists, like the one below.

Consider the source. Do a bit of research on the source where you found the information. Do they say outright that they provide fantasy or alternative news? Is there a suspicious lack of information about the company or how to contact those responsible for providing the “news”?
Read beyond the headline. Fake news sites (and real news sites too) often use outrageous language in their headlines in an attempt to draw you into a news story. Don’t just take a headline at face value. Read the rest of the article to get the full story so you can assess its validity.
Check the author. Just as you researched the news source, do a bit of research on the author of the story. Claims of expertise, awards, and so on can often be easily debunked with a quick Google search.
What’s the support? If an article that seems to be fake lists sources, check them. Do they actually support what they are claiming to support? Are the sources also unreliable? Does the article cite real sources that have nothing to do with the matter at hand, making it appear more credible than it is?
Check the date. Sometimes fake news stories are actually real stories that are being repurposed in a way that falsely makes connections or correlations that do not exist. Is the story claiming that one event caused another, when in fact the original event occurred years before the supposed cause?
Is this some kind of joke? Some fake news sites are satirical in nature and are openly trying to be outlandish and funny. If a story seems ridiculous, do a little digging and see if you’re reading a satire Web site.
Check your biases. We are inclined to trust news stories that back up our beliefs. If you see an outrageous claim, for example, against a politician that you strongly dislike, look at other articles by the same source or site to see if they seem to be legitimate.
Consult the experts. Because fake news is so widespread these days, there are many reliable sites and organizations that exist for the sole purpose of verifying fake and questionable news stories. These sites, including FactCheck.org, Snopes.com, and Politifact.com, can act as a starting point for you if you come across a news story that doesn’t seem right to you.

Adapted from FactCheck.org, “How to Spot Fake News,” http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/.

Also, even as fake news burgeons, there is a citizen movement to support real news. Subscriptions are up at the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post; NPR’s listening audience has hit record numbers; and even news satires like Saturday Night Live, Steven Colbert’s Late Show, and Full Frontal with Samantha Bee are thriving (satire being the only kind of fake news with a positive social value).

So, how do we, as critical consumers, decipher whether or not the news we’re reading is real or fake? And, when fake news is in play, how do we determine how harmful a particular piece of fake news might be to democracy?

As developed in Chapter 1, a media-literate perspective involves mastering five overlapping critical stages that build on one another: (1) description: paying close attention, taking notes, and researching the subject under study; (2) analysis: discovering and focusing on significant patterns that emerge from the description stage; (3) interpretation: asking and answering the “What does that mean?” and “So what?” questions about your findings; (4) evaluation: arriving at a judgment about whether something is good, bad, poor, or mediocre, which involves subordinating one’s personal views to the critical assessment resulting from the first three stages; and (5) engagement: taking some action that connects our critical interpretations and evaluations with our responsibility as citizens.

In this activity, you examine news stories from a recent major news event and evaluate the validity of the news coverage surrounding it.

Value of reference five. See International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions, “How to Spot Fake News,” March 2, 2017, http://www.ifla.org/publications/node/11174; Eugene Kiely and Lori Robertson, “How to Spot Fake News,” FactCheck.org, November 18, 2016, http://www.factcheck.org/2016/11/how-to-spot-fake-news/; Wynne Davis, “Fake Or Real? How to Self-Check the News and Get the Facts,” NPR, December 5, 2016, http://www.npr.org/sections/alltechconsidered/2016/12/05/503581220/fake-or-real-how-to-self-check-the-news-and-get-the-facts.

Description

As a class, select a major news event to examine. It should be an event with plenty of coverage from many different perspectives. Research at least five different news stories of this event, looking for some stories from reputable news organizations, like the New York Times, and some from less reputable organizations or Web sites. Using the box below, take notes about your research and your initial impressions.