Bad News

2021 ◽  
pp. 240-260
Author(s):  
Debasish Roy Chowdhury ◽  
John Keane
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
Communication Networks ◽  
Bad News ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Media Frames ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Bharatiya Janata Party ◽  
Media Communications

This chapter examines Indian media. Communications scholars have long argued that media sets the agenda for public opinion, first by drawing the attention of citizens to a particular issue, and then by defining it by means of comprehensible media ‘frames’ that act as cognitive shortcuts to understand issues. As in other so-called democracies, journalists working within India’s mainstream media are engaged 24/7 in framing narratives, making them indispensable for any government. Anti-Muslim messaging, generally subtle, has been the default media frame ever since the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) came to power in 2014. This coincided with the coming of communicative abundance, the profusion of new communication networks and technologies, and rapidly changing media consumption habits. Secretive organizations frame sophisticated misinformation campaigns to spread fake news and false claims through social media. In such a media environment marked by features common to despotisms like Vietnam, Iran, and Russia, where independent journalism is all but dead, self-censorship and toad-eating are rife.

What the fake? Assessing the extent of networked political spamming and bots in the propagation of #fakenews on Twitter

2019 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 53-71 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi ◽  
Jacob Groshek ◽  
Li Zhang
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Data Sets ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
News Discourse ◽  
Twitter Data ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Twitter Users ◽  
One Year

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine one of the largest data sets on the hashtag use of #fakenews that comprises over 14m tweets sent by more than 2.4m users.Design/methodology/approachTweets referencing the hashtag (#fakenews) were collected for a period of over one year from January 3 to May 7 of 2018. Bot detection tools were employed, and the most retweeted posts, most mentions and most hashtags as well as the top 50 most active users in terms of the frequency of their tweets were analyzed.FindingsThe majority of the top 50 Twitter users are more likely to be automated bots, while certain users’ posts like that are sent by President Donald Trump dominate the most retweeted posts that always associate mainstream media with fake news. The most used words and hashtags show that major news organizations are frequently referenced with a focus on CNN that is often mentioned in negative ways.Research limitations/implicationsThe research study is limited to the examination of Twitter data, while ethnographic methods like interviews or surveys are further needed to complement these findings. Though the data reported here do not prove direct effects, the implications of the research provide a vital framework for assessing and diagnosing the networked spammers and main actors that have been pivotal in shaping discourses around fake news on social media. These discourses, which are sometimes assisted by bots, can create a potential influence on audiences and their trust in mainstream media and understanding of what fake news is.Originality/valueThis paper offers results on one of the first empirical research studies on the propagation of fake news discourse on social media by shedding light on the most active Twitter users who discuss and mention the term “#fakenews” in connection to other news organizations, parties and related figures.

scholarly journals Fake and Real News detection Using Python

2020 ◽  
pp. 423-428
Author(s):  
Fakhra Akhtar ◽  
Faizan Ahmed Khan
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False Information ◽  
False Negatives ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Masses ◽  
Negative Attributes ◽  
Entire Dataset ◽  
F Measure

<p>In the digital age, fake news has become a well-known phenomenon. The spread of false evidence is often used to confuse mainstream media and political opponents, and can lead to social media wars, hatred arguments and debates.Fake news is blurring the distinction between real and false information, and is often spread on social media resulting in negative views and opinions. Earlier Research describe the fact that false propaganda is used to create false stories on mainstream media in order to cause a revolt and tension among the masses The digital rights foundation DRF report, which builds on the experiences of 152 journalists and activists in Pakistan, presents that more than 88 % of the participants find social media platforms as the worst source for information, with Facebook being the absolute worst. The dataset used in this paper relates to Real and fake news detection. The objective of this paper is to determine the Accuracy , precision , of the entire dataset .The results are visualized in the form of graphs and the analysis was done using python. The results showed the fact that the dataset holds 95% of the accuracy. The number of actual predicted cases were 296. Results of this paper reveals that The accuracy of the model dataset is 95.26 % the precision results 95.79 % whereas recall and F-Measure shows 94.56% and 95.17% accuracy respectively.Whereas in predicted models there are 296 positive attributes , 308 negative attributes 17 false positives and 13 false negatives. This research recommends that authenticity of news should be analysed first instead of drafting an opinion, sharing fake news or false information is considered unethical journalists and news consumers both should act responsibly while sharing any news.</p>

scholarly journals A family of falsehoods: Deception, media hoaxes and fake news

2018 ◽  
Vol 39 (3) ◽  
pp. 350-361 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teri Finneman ◽  
Ryan J. Thomas
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Public Officials ◽  
False Information ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
News Organizations ◽  
Information Spread ◽  
History Of

“Fake news” became a concern for journalists in 2017 as news organizations sought to differentiate themselves from false information spread via social media, websites and public officials. This essay examines the history of media hoaxing and fake news to help provide context for the current U.S. media environment. In addition, definitions of the concepts are proposed to provide clarity for researchers and journalists trying to explain these phenomena.

scholarly journals Simulacra in the Age of Social Media: Baudrillard as the Prophet of Fake News

2020 ◽  
pp. 019685992097715
Author(s):  
James Morris
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
General Trend ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Online Technology ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Mass Reproduction

“Fake News” has been a frequent topic in the last couple of years. The phenomenon has particularly been cited with regards to the election of Donald Trump to the presidency of the United States. The creation of “post truth” reports that are disseminated via the Web and social media has been treated as something new, a product of the digital age, and a reason to be concerned about the effects of online technology. However, this paper argues that fake news should be considered as part of a continuum with forms of media that went before in the 20th Century, and the general trend of postmodernity detailed by Baudrillard. The simulation of communications media and mass reproduction was already evident and has merely progressed in the digital age rather than the latter providing a wholly new context. The paper concludes by asking whether the political havoc caused by fake news has an antidote, when it appears to be a by-product of media simulacra’s inherent lack of connection to the real. In a communications landscape where the misrepresentations of the so-called “Mainstream Media” are decried using even more questionable “memes” on social media, is there any possibility for truth?

scholarly journals Social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after the 2016 elections

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy Glueckstern ◽  
Alexi Benyacar ◽  
Sacha Grigri
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Presidential Elections ◽  
Media Use ◽  
User Engagement ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Media Usage ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Before And After ◽  
The Media

According to Gill (2017), the present era of electronic revolution is one in which social media has become a means to an end in political sphere communication. Today, political marketing and advertising for persons seeking elective posts analyze, develop, execute and manage campaigns as a way of driving public opinion (Laing &amp; Khattab, 2016). Social media provides a platform on which one can engage with the so-called connected generation. If the November 2016 elections are anything to go by, Twitter proved to be the medium of choice for citizens to engage and consume political content (Le et al., 2017). Ideally, tweets formed the basis of facilitating user engagement through the provision of content and newsbreaks. By extension, the mentioned discussions would influence the political discourse while establishing the capacity to determine the events of mainstream media. This study seeks to establish social media usage by President Donald Trump before and after his election. An understanding of such trend is essential in inferring as to whether Social media, in this case Twitter, plays a role in the current political spheres by promoting influence of a given aspirant. This stems from various studies that have stated that there is an association between social media use and an aspirant’s influence of the connected generation who are especially the youths. For instance, a thesis by Hwang (2016) observed that President Trump’s Twitter usage contributes to his political poll success which he associates with a reflection of his personality in the media use. This was also observed by Lilleker, Jackson, Thorsen and Veneti (2016) who stated that President Trump’s media use contributed to his election. It would hence be essential to understand President Trump’s nature of usage of Twitter. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) conducted a study in which they observed use of fake news to influence people into certain political alignments. Twitter was also observed as one of the channels through which fake news was distributed. This study might help to create a foundation under which more studies can be done to determine the association of social media with other issues facing the society such as fake news and environment issues and their role on presidential elections. It would also be worth noting that there has been high politicization of President Trump’s use of Twitter especially during his Campaigns. This study would hence help to infer whether there is a change in this factor after his election.

A Deep Learning Based Approach for Fake News Detection

2021 ◽  
pp. 388-394
Author(s):  
Srishti Sharma ◽  
Vaishali Kalra
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Language Processing ◽  
Research Effort ◽  
Political Polarization ◽  
Fake News ◽  
User Characteristics ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Boosting Method ◽  
Partisan Conflict

Owing to the rapid explosion of social media platforms in the past decade, we spread and consume information via the internet at an expeditious rate. It has caused an alarming proliferation of fake news on social networks. The global nature of social networks has facilitated international blowout of fake news. Fake news has proven to increase political polarization and partisan conflict. Fake news is also found to be more rampant on social media than mainstream media. The evil of fake news is garnering a lot of attention and research effort. In this work, we have tried to handle the spread of fake news via tweets. We have performed fake news classification by employing user characteristics as well as tweet text. Thus, trying to provide a holistic solution for fake news detection. For classifying user characteristics, we have used the XGBoost algorithm which is an ensemble of decision trees utilising the boosting method. Further to correctly classify the tweet text we used various natural language processing techniques to preprocess the tweets and then applied a sequential neural network and state-of-the-art BERT transformer to classify the tweets. The models have then been evaluated and compared with various baseline models to show that our approach effectively tackles this problemOwing to the rapid explosion of social media platforms in the past decade, we spread and consume information via the internet at an expeditious rate. It has caused an alarming proliferation of fake news on social networks. The global nature of social networks has facilitated international blowout of fake news. Fake news has proven to increase political polarization and partisan conflict. Fake news is also found to be more rampant on social media than mainstream media. The evil of fake news is garnering a lot of attention and research effort. In this work, we have tried to handle the spread of fake news via tweets. We have performed fake news classification by employing user characteristics as well as tweet text. Thus, trying to provide a holistic solution for fake news detection. For classifying user characteristics, we have used the XGBoost algorithm which is an ensemble of decision trees utilising the boosting method. Further to correctly classify the tweet text we used various natural language processing techniques to preprocess the tweets and then applied a sequential neural network and state-of-the-art BERT transformer to classify the tweets. The models have then been evaluated and compared with various baseline models to show that our approach effectively tackles this problem

The effect of news consumption on fake news efficacy

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sylvia Chan-Olmsted ◽  
Yufan Sunny Qin
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Self Efficacy ◽  
Online Survey ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
News Consumption ◽  
News Sources ◽  
News Source ◽  
Perceived Effects ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The increasing use of social media has led to the growing reliance of social media as a news source. The viral nature of social platforms inevitably elevates the viral impact of fake news. As both academia and practitioners touted media literacy as a means of combating fake news or misinformation, little is known about the nature of relevant efficacies. Existent literature points to the plausible contribution of media consumption, self-efficacy of fake news and perceived impact of fake news in this process. Therefore, this study explored the relationship between consumers’ news consumption, such as fake news experiences/perceptions, news sources and news consumption motives; and fake news perceptions like self-efficacy and impacts. This study conducted an online survey to examine the proposed hypotheses and research questions. The findings suggest that consumers’ previous experiences and consumption motives are connected with their perceived effects and efficacy of fake news. In addition, different news sources (i.e. mainstream media and social media) exert diverse effects on fake news self-efficacy.

Chillin’ Effects of Fake News: Changes in Practices Related to Accountability and Transparency in American Newsrooms Under the Influence of Misinformation and Accusations Against the News Media

2021 ◽  
pp. 107769902098478
Author(s):  
Hong Tien Vu ◽  
Magdalena Saldaña
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
News Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Representative Survey ◽  
Media Environment ◽  
Media Audiences ◽  
Role Conceptions ◽  
Nationally Representative

This study examines how newsroom work in the United States has changed in response to some of the latest developments in the news media environment. Using nationally representative survey data, we explore what professional routines American journalists have adopted to avoid spreading or being accused of publishing misinformation. Findings suggest that journalists have added new or intensified practices to increase accountability and transparency. In addition, role conceptions, perception of fake news, and responsibility for social media audiences impact the adoption of such practices. Journalists are more likely to embrace transparency than accountability, suggesting the emergence of new journalistic norms in today’s newsrooms.

scholarly journals Moroccan Social Media Platforms and COVID-19 Misinformation

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 123-134
Author(s):  
Hanane Aboulghazi
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Exploratory Research ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Health Crisis ◽  
Main Research ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
The Government ◽  
Crisis Situations

COVID-19 pandemic has been accompanied by a massive ‘infodemic’ and an over-abundance of disinformation that makes it hard for people to find trustworthy sources and reliable guidance when they need it. Young Moroccan internet users resort to social media for their news, and easily fall prey to the misinformation and fake news they encounter online. When it concerns public health, disinformation can turn into a lethal weapon. This is further exacerbated at the time of COVID-19 pandemic. To tackle this, the present research paper answers the research questions using a qualitative method, particularly semi-structured interviews preferable  in exploratory  research where the purpose is to gain an understanding of spreading online misinformation in the age of COVID-19. Semi-structured Interviews are conducted via “Google Meet” and “Zoom” using video-conferencing among 12 young Moroccan social media activists and professionals. The main research findings have shown that young Moroccan social media users have been consuming fake news about the Coronavirus, which has been especially prevalent on the most popular platforms, Facebook, Whats App and YouTube. Other results have shown that the mainstream media failed to debunk misinformation by subjecting them to rigorous fact checking experiments, lack of Media Information Literacy research in the form of crisis audits and crisis planning, Moroccan social media are ill prepared for crisis manual and conducting crisis training. These ensure that media regulators are not better equipped to handle any  misinformation in health crisis situations. Therefore, media literacy is not only about how to use the computer and do an internet search, it also involves helping young Moroccan people to deal with disinformation in crisis situations, and realize that anyone anywhere can put up a very official-looking websites. These websites masquerade as high-credibility sources that have been spreading misinformation about COVID-19. Therefore, the government needs.

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