scholarly journals You are fake news: political bias in perceptions of fake news

2020 ◽  
Vol 42 (3) ◽  
pp. 460-470 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sander van der Linden ◽  
Costas Panagopoulos ◽  
Jon Roozenbeek
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Fox News ◽  
The Us ◽  
News Effect

Although the rise of fake news is posing an increasing threat to societies worldwide, little is known about what associations the term ‘fake news’ activates in the public mind. Here, we report a psychological bias that we describe as the ‘fake news effect’: the tendency for partisans to use the term ‘fake news’ to discount and discredit ideologically uncongenial media sources. In a national sample of the US population ( N = 1000), we elicited top-of-mind associations with the term ‘fake news’. Consistent with our hypothesis, we find evidence that both liberals and conservatives freely associate traditionally left-wing (e.g. CNN) and right-wing (e.g. Fox News) media sources with the term fake news. Moreover, conservatives are especially likely to associate the mainstream media with the term fake news and these perceptions are generally linked to lower trust in media, voting for Trump, and higher belief in conspiracy theories.

Making Enemies: the Mainstream Media Spectacle and US Foreign Policy

2020 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 138-156
Author(s):  
Gerald Sussman
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Public Affairs ◽  
Investigative Journalism ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
State Legitimacy ◽  
Liberal Democratic ◽  
The Us ◽  
Media Spectacle

Abstract As Herbert Schiller long ago observed, the mainstream (corporate) media (MSM) in the US have long been instruments of state power. However, since the nineteenth century, the reading public has relied on the news media as a pillar, albeit flawed, of a liberal democratic society. While the public still regards a “free press” as essential to democracy, it no longer has confidence that the mainstream media deserve that status. Trust levels in the MSM have plummeted since the 1970s, reflecting a larger pattern of distrust of public and private institutions in general, including the US Congress. Even many media professionals themselves do not see the US as defending the freedom of investigative journalism. Moreover, the quality of corporate media, more owner-concentrated than ever, has declined, often to the level of tabloid spectacle, as profit-oriented news departments try to compete with a wide array of 24/7 news platforms, including those coming from social media. The era of neoliberalism has all but eliminated the public service ideology behind news and public affairs reporting, and concurrently there has emerged a crisis of state legitimacy that threatens the foundations of the liberal democratic order.

More than “Fake News”?

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia Rossini ◽  
Jennifer Stromer-Galley ◽  
Ania Korsunska
Keyword(s):  
News Media ◽  
Political Elites ◽  
Fake News ◽  
The Public ◽  
Presidential Primary ◽  
The Media ◽  
Scholarly Attention

Abstract While the debate around the prevalence and potential effects of fake news has received considerable scholarly attention, less research has focused on how political elites and pundits weaponized fake news to delegitimize the media. In this study, we examine the rhetoric in 2020 U.S. presidential primary candidates Facebook advertisements. Our analysis suggests that Republican and Democratic candidates alike attack and demean the news media on several themes, including castigating them for malicious gatekeeping, for being out of touch with the views of the public, and for being a bully. Only Trump routinely attacks the news media for trafficking in falsehoods and for colluding with other interests to attack his candidacy. Our findings highlight the ways that candidates instrumentalize the news media for their own rhetorical purposes; further constructing the news media as harmful to democracy.

scholarly journals Discursive Deflection: Accusation of “Fake News” and the Spread of Mis- and Disinformation in the Tweets of President Trump

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 205630511877601 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew S. Ross ◽  
Damian J. Rivers
Keyword(s):  
Corpus Analysis ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Hillary Clinton ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Objective Truth ◽  
Reliable Source ◽  
The Media ◽  
Media Reports

Twitter is increasingly being used within the sociopolitical domain as a channel through which to circulate information and opinions. Throughout the 2016 US Presidential primaries and general election campaign, a notable feature was the prolific Twitter use of Republican candidate and then nominee, Donald Trump. This use has continued since his election victory and inauguration as President. Trump’s use of Twitter has drawn criticism due to his rhetoric in relation to various issues, including Hillary Clinton, the size of the crowd in attendance at his inauguration, the policies of the former Obama administration, and immigration and foreign policy. One of the most notable features of Trump’s Twitter use has been his repeated ridicule of the mainstream media through pejorative labels such as “fake news” and “fake media.” These labels have been deployed in an attempt to deter the public from trusting media reports, many of which are critical of Trump’s presidency, and to position himself as the only reliable source of truth. However, given the contestable nature of objective truth, it can be argued that Trump himself is a serial offender in the propagation of mis- and disinformation in the same vein that he accuses the media. This article adopts a corpus analysis of Trump’s Twitter discourse to highlight his accusations of fake news and how he operates as a serial spreader of mis- and disinformation. Our data show that Trump uses these accusations to demonstrate allegiance and as a cover for his own spreading of mis- and disinformation that is framed as truth.

scholarly journals One issue, different stories: The construction of GMO issues on Chinese, American and British mainstream media portals

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
pp. 255-275
Author(s):  
Yiqin Ruan ◽  
Jing Yang ◽  
Jianbin Jin
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
Media Coverage ◽  
Genetically Modified Organisms ◽  
Scientific Information ◽  
New York Times ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Us ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Uk

Biotechnology, as an emerging technology, has drawn much attention from the public and elicited hot debates in countries around the world and among various stakeholders. Due to the public's limited access to front-line scientific information and scientists, as well as the difficulty of processing complex scientific knowledge, the media have become one of the most important channels for the public to get news about scientific issues such as genetically modified organisms (GMOs). According to framing theory, how the media portray GMO issues may influence audiences’ perceptions of those issues. Moreover, different countries and societies have various GMO regulations, policies and public opinion, which also affect the way media cover GMO issues. Thus, it is necessary to investigate how GMO issues are covered in different media outlets across different countries. We conducted a comparative content analysis of media coverage of GMO issues in China, the US and the UK. One mainstream news portal in each of the three countries was chosen ( People's Daily for China, The New York Times for the US, and The Guardian for the UK). We collected coverage over eight years, from 2008 to 2015, which yielded 749 pieces of news in total. We examined the sentiments expressed and the generic frames used in coverage of GMO issues. We found that the factual, human interest, conflict and regulation frames were the most common frames used on the three portals, while the sentiments expressed under those frames varied across the media outlets, indicating differences in the state of GMO development, promotion and regulation among the three countries.

scholarly journals Public opinion on age stereotypes during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. 29-32
Author(s):  
Gabriella Sandstig
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Public Opinion ◽  
News Media ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Risk Group ◽  
National Sample ◽  
Age Stereotypes ◽  
The Public ◽  
Gender Education ◽  
The Media

The news media can both mirror age stereotypes held by the public, as well as contribute to constructing or amplifying them. The first risk group identified in the pandemic was older adults. They are generally not so visible in the media, but during the pandemic, they were in focus. This study analyses to what extent the public agrees with age stereotypes during the COVID-19 pandemic and what characterizes the groups that hold them. Survey data from 04/14/20-06/28/20 on a national sample (6000) of the population of Sweden is used. The results, contrary to the expectation that stereotypes of older adults should dominate the public opinion, rather the stereotype of younger people not distancing themselves enough is the most common. However, the corresponding stereotype of older adults not doing the same is the second most common. In a non-crises situation, the most common stereotype of older adults is that they have poor cognitive abilities. However, this stereotype is rare during the pandemic. The characteristic of the group that agree with the stereotypes are that they are young rather than old. There are also differences by gender, education and residential area, but they vary depending on the specific age stereotype in question.

scholarly journals A simulated cyberattack on Twitter: Assessing partisan vulnerability to spear phishing and disinformation ahead of the 2018 U.S. midterm elections

First Monday ◽  
2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael Bossetta
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Private Information ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
Left Wing ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Breaking News ◽  
Media Companies ◽  
Midterm Elections ◽  
Social Media Platforms ◽  
Twitter Users

State-sponsored “bad actors” increasingly weaponize social media platforms to launch cyberattacks and disinformation campaigns during elections. Social media companies, due to their rapid growth and scale, struggle to prevent the weaponization of their platforms. This study conducts an automated spear phishing and disinformation campaign on Twitter ahead of the 2018 United States midterm elections. A fake news bot account — the @DCNewsReport — was created and programmed to automatically send customized tweets with a “breaking news” link to 138 Twitter users, before being restricted by Twitter.Overall, one in five users clicked the link, which could have potentially led to the downloading of ransomware or the theft of private information. However, the link in this experiment was non-malicious and redirected users to a Google Forms survey. In predicting users’ likelihood to click the link on Twitter, no statistically significant differences were observed between right-wing and left-wing partisans, or between Web users and mobile users. The findings signal that politically expressive Americans on Twitter, regardless of their party preferences or the devices they use to access the platform, are at risk of being spear phished on social media.

scholarly journals Political Memes and Fake News Discourses on Instagram

2021 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 276-290
Author(s):  
Ahmed Al-Rawi
Keyword(s):  
Online Communities ◽  
Mixed Method ◽  
Republican Party ◽  
Online Community ◽  
Search Term ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Far Right ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
The Us ◽  
Insight Into

Political memes have been previously studied in different contexts, but this study fills a gap in literature by employing a mixed method to provide insight into the discourses of fake news on Instagram. The author collected more than 550,000 Instagram posts sent by over 198,000 unique users from 24 February 2012 to 21 December 2018, using the hashtag #fakenews as a search term. The study uses topic modelling to identify the most recurrent topics that are dominant on the platform, while the most active users are identified to understand the nature of the online communities that discuss fake news. In addition, the study offers an analysis of visual metadata that accompanies Instagram images. The findings indicate that Instagram has become a weaponized toxic platform, and the largest community of active users are supporters of the US President Donald Trump and the Republican Party, mostly trolling liberal mainstream media especially CNN, while often aligning themselves with the far-right. On the other hand, a much smaller online community attempts to troll Trump and the Republicans. Theoretically, the study relies on political memes literature and argues that Instagram has become weaponized through an ongoing ‘Meme War,’ for many members in the two main online communities troll and attack each other to exert power on the platform.

scholarly journals The “replication crisis” in the public eye: Germans’ awareness and perceptions of the (ir)reproducibility of scientific research

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Niels Göran Mede ◽  
Mike S. Schäfer ◽  
Ricarda Ziegler ◽  
Markus Weißkopf
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
News Media ◽  
Secondary Analysis ◽  
Public Confidence ◽  
Scientific Quality ◽  
Right Wing ◽  
The Public ◽  
German Science ◽  
Replication Crisis ◽  
Nationally Representative

Several meta-analytical attempts to reproduce results of empirical research have failed in recent years, prompting scholars and news media to diagnose a “replication crisis” and voice concerns about science losing public credibility. Others, in contrast, hoped replication efforts could improve public confidence in science. Yet nationally representative evidence backing these concerns or hopes is scarce. We provide such evidence, conducting a secondary analysis of the German “Science Barometer” (“Wissenschaftsbarometer”) survey. We find that most Germans are not aware of the “replication crisis.” In addition, most interpret replication efforts as indicative of scientific quality control and science’s self-correcting nature. However, supporters of the populist right-wing party AfD tend to believe that the “crisis” shows one cannot trust science, perhaps using it as an argument to discredit science. But for the majority of Germans, hopes about reputational benefits of the “replication crisis” for science seem more justified than concerns about detrimental effects.

Police and the News Media

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ted Gest
Keyword(s):  
Law Enforcement ◽  
News Media ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
The Internet ◽  
Investigative Reporting ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Relationship

Police and the media have had a close relationship but it has become an increasingly uneasy one. For more than a century, the mainstream United States media—mainly newspapers, radio, television and magazines—have depended on the police for raw material for a steady diet of crime stories. For its part, law enforcement regards the media as something of an adversary. The relationship has changed because of the growth of investigative reporting and of the Internet. Both developments have increased the volume of material critical of the police. At the same time, law enforcement has used social media as a means to bypass the mainstream media to try getting its message directly to the public. However, the news media in all of its forms remains a powerful interpreter of how law enforcement does its job.

Can Indian journalism survive the onslaught of social media?

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (2) ◽  
pp. 151-157 ◽  
Author(s):  
Usha M Rodrigues
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Political Parties ◽  
News Media ◽  
Public Discourse ◽  
Party Leaders ◽  
Online Networks ◽  
The Public ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Use Of Social Media ◽  
Effective Use

In recent times, researchers have examined the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s use of social media to directly connect with his followers, while largely shunning the mainstream media. This strategy of direct communication with their constituents has been adopted by other political parties too, with opposition party leaders hosting ‘Facebook Live’ sessions and tweeting their messages. A large proportion of Indian voters, who increasingly own mobile phones, are enjoying being part of the ‘like’ and ‘share’ online networks. What does this effective use of social media by Indian political parties mean for the public discourse in India? This article presents the view that this phenomenon is more than Modi’s ‘selfie nationalism’ or his attempt to marginalize the news media. The article argues that there is a structural shift in the Indian public sphere, which might prove to be the greatest challenge to Indian journalism.

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