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 & 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.

scholarly journals Using Social Media to Motivate Anti-migration Sentiments. Political Implications in the United States and Beyond

Tripodos ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 51-69
Author(s):  
Blanca Nicasio Varea ◽  
Marta Pérez Gabaldón ◽  
Manuel Chavez
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
First Year ◽  
Personal Account ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
White House ◽  
Migrant Communities ◽  
Political Implications

The proliferation of nationalist and nativist movements all over the world has capitalized on the broad impact of social media, especially on Twitter. In the case of the United States, as candidate and then as President, Donald Trump initiated an active use of Twitter to disseminate his views on migration and migrants. This paper analyzes the themes and the political implications of his tweets from Trump’s electoral win to the end of the first year of his presidency. The authors’ assumptions are that Trump’s rhetoric untapped a collective sentiment against migration as well as one which supported views to protect migrant communities. The findings show that some topics were retweeted massively fueling the perceptions that most Americans were against migrant communities and their protectors. We conducted content analysis of the tweets sent by President Trump during his first year in the White House. We used the personal account of Trump in Twitter @realDonaldTrump. Trump has used his personal account as a policy and political media instrument to convey his messages rather than to use the official account that all Presidents have traditionally used @POTUS. Since Trump ran on a nativist platform with strong negative sentiments against migrants and immigration in general, we examined the tweets that relate to these topics.

scholarly journals Ratioing the President: An exploration of public engagement with Obama and Trump on Twitter

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. e0248880
Author(s):  
Joshua R. Minot ◽  
Michael V. Arnold ◽  
Thayer Alshaabi ◽  
Christopher M. Danforth ◽  
Peter Sheridan Dodds
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Engagement ◽  
Political Engagement ◽  
The United States ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
The Past ◽  
2016 Election ◽  
Use Of Social Media

The past decade has witnessed a marked increase in the use of social media by politicians, most notably exemplified by the 45th President of the United States (POTUS), Donald Trump. On Twitter, POTUS messages consistently attract high levels of engagement as measured by likes, retweets, and replies. Here, we quantify the balance of these activities, also known as “ratios”, and study their dynamics as a proxy for collective political engagement in response to presidential communications. We find that raw activity counts increase during the period leading up to the 2016 election, accompanied by a regime change in the ratio of retweets-to-replies connected to the transition between campaigning and governing. For the Trump account, we find words related to fake news and the Mueller inquiry are more common in tweets with a high number of replies relative to retweets. Finally, we find that Barack Obama consistently received a higher retweet-to-reply ratio than Donald Trump. These results suggest Trump’s Twitter posts are more often controversial and subject to enduring engagement as a given news cycle unfolds.

Identity concerns drive belief: The impact of partisan identity on the belief and dissemination of true and false news

2021 ◽  
pp. 136843022110300
Author(s):  
Andrea Pereira ◽  
Elizabeth Harris ◽  
Jay J. Van Bavel
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Political Identity ◽  
Confirmation Bias ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Fake News ◽  
False News ◽  
Democrats And Republicans ◽  
The Impact

We test three competing theoretical accounts invoked to explain the rise and spread of political (mis)information. We compare the ideological values hypothesis (people prefer news that bolster their values and worldviews); the confirmation bias hypothesis (people prefer news that fit their preexisting stereotypical knowledge); and the political identity hypothesis (people prefer news that allow them to believe positive things about political ingroup members and negative things about political outgroup members). In three experiments ( N = 1,420), participants from the United States read news describing actions perpetrated by their political ingroup or outgroup. Consistent with the political identity hypothesis, Democrats and Republicans were both more likely to believe news about the value-upholding behavior of their ingroup or the value-undermining behavior of their outgroup. Belief was positively correlated with willingness to share on social media in all conditions, but Republicans were more likely to believe and want to share apolitical fake news.

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 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 Fake News and the Convention on Cybercrime

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (3) ◽  
pp. 335-358
Author(s):  
Robert Smith ◽  
Mark Perry
Keyword(s):  
Hate Speech ◽  
Service Providers ◽  
The United States ◽  
Clear Definition ◽  
Fake News ◽  
Council Of Europe ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Additional Protocol ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
The Web

The COVID-19 pandemic and the recent term of the United States President, Donald Trump, brought the term “fake news” to the attention of the broader community. Some jurisdictions have developed anti-fake news legislation, whilst others have used existing cybercrime legislation. A significant deficiency is the lack of a clear definition of fake news. Just because a person calls something “fake news” does not mean that it is indeed false. Especially during pandemics, the primary aim should be to have misinformation and disinformation removed quickly from the web rather than prosecute offenders. The most widely accepted international anti-cybercrime treaty is the Convention on Cybercrime developed by the Council of Europe, which is silent on fake news, the propagation of which may be a cybercrime. There is an Additional Protocol that deals with hate speech, which the authors consider to be a subset of fake news. Using examples from Southeast Asia, the paper develops a comprehensive definition of what constitutes fake news. It ensures that it covers the various flavours of fake news that have been adopted in various jurisdictions. Hate speech can be considered a subset of fake news and is defined as the publication or distribution of fake news with the intention to incite hatred or violence against ethnic, religious, political, and other groups in society. The paper proposes some offences, including those that should be applied to platform service providers. The recommendations could be easily adapted for inclusion in the Convention on Cybercrime or other regional conventions. Such an approach is desirable as cybercrime, including propagating fake news, is not a respecter of national borders, and has widespread deleterious effects. Keywords: Fake news; hate speech; Convention on Cybercrime; draft legislation

scholarly journals Engaging for Puerto Rico: #RickyRenuncia (and #RickySeQueda) during El Verano del 19 and digital identities

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Danilo T Perez-Rivera ◽  
Christopher Torres Lugo ◽  
Alexis R Santos-Lozada
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Puerto Rico ◽  
Social Activism ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Digital Revolution ◽  
The People ◽  
The Social ◽  
The World ◽  
Puerto Rican Diaspora

Between July 13-24, 2019 the people of Puerto Rico took the streets after a series of corruption scandals shocked the political establishment. The social uprising resulted in the ousting of the Governor of Puerto Rico (Dr. Ricardo Rosselló, Ricky), the resignation of the majority of his staff something unprecedented in the history of Puerto Rico; this period has been called El Verano del 19 (Summer of 19). Social media played a crucial role in both the organization and dissemination of the protests, marches, and other activities that occurred within this period. Puerto Ricans in the island and around the world engaged in this social movement through the digital revolution mainly under the hashtag #RickyRenuncia (Ricky Resign), with a small counter movement under the hashtag #RickySeQueda (Ricky will stay). The purpose of this study is to illustrate the magnitude and grass roots nature of the political movement’s social media presence, as well as their characteristics of the population of both movements and their structures. We found that #RickyRenuncia was used approximately one million times in the period of analysis while #RickySeQueda barely reached 6,000 tweets. Particularly, the pervasiveness of cliques in the #RickySeQueda show concentrations of authority dedicated to its propagation, whilst the #RickyRenuncia propagation was much more distributed and decentralized with little to no interaction between significant nodes of authority. Noteworthy was the role of the Puerto Rican diaspora in the United States of America and around the world, contributing close to 40% of all geo-located tweets. Finally, we found that the Twitter followers of the former governor had indicators of being composed of two distinct populations: 1) those active in social media and 2) those who follow the account but who are not active participants of the social network. We discuss the implications of these findings on the interpretation of emergence, structure and dissemination of social activism and countermovement to these activities in the context of Puerto Rico.

scholarly journals A Comparative Study on Social Media Use and Public Participation in Korea and the United States: Does Social Media Matter?

2015 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 207-230
Author(s):  
Kim Eun Yi
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Social Media ◽  
Public Participation ◽  
Interaction Effect ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Political ◽  
Social Media Use ◽  
The Impact

This study examines how the use of different types of social media, such as Facebook and Twitter, affects public participation, drawing on the theory of motivation, which addresses the effect of internal and external political efficacy as well as the perceived political importance of social media. The study also investigates the interaction effect between social media use and perceived the political importance of social media on public participation. Employing a comparative perspective on an issue that has not been well studied, the study further seeks to discover potential variations in the impacts of different social media on public participation in the United States and Korea, both of which held presidential elections at the end of 2012. This study conducted hierarchical multiple regression analyses using data collected from college students in the United States and Korea. It shows the positive impact of social media use and its interaction effect with the perceived political importance of social media on the offline and online public participation of youth. The political motivational factor is found to be critical to driving public participation. This study also shows that the impact of Facebook use is more influential than Twitter use on public participation in the United States, whereas the opposite pattern is observed in Korea.

scholarly journals President Trump’s Declarations on Official Development Assistance: A Change of Policy?

2019 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 33-42
Author(s):  
Michał Zaremba
Keyword(s):  
Development Assistance ◽  
International Aid ◽  
Developed Countries ◽  
The United States ◽  
Official Development Assistance ◽  
Financial Assistance ◽  
The Political ◽  
Political Climate ◽  
Donald Trump

For years official development assistance (ODA) has been one of the most important forms of financial assistance provided to developing countries by highly developed countries. Despite the controversy over the effectiveness of assistance, it has become a permanent element of the international aid system. With the election of Donald Trump and one of the key slogans of his campaign – America first – the political climate around official development assistance is changing. The aim of the article is to analyze the role of official development assistance in political declarations of the current president of the United States.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document