scholarly journals A review of the fake news ecosystem in India and the need for the News Literacy project

2019 ◽  
pp. 23-29
Author(s):  
Kanchan Kaur

In India, in the last year alone, over 30 people have died due to child kidnapping rumors spread on social media, specifically WhatsApp. India’s access to the internet shot up in the recent years with the entry of Reliance Jio which made data plans affordable and therefore accessible. WhatsApp has been the most frequently downloaded application. As the country gears up for an important election, the spread of disinformation has accelerated. The right-wing ruling party has claimed that it has over 3 million people in its WhatsApp groups. A recent study by BBC has shown that in the country, most of the disinformation has been spread by the right wing. Call it propaganda, disinformation or plain fake news, false or wrong information has become a part of the political process in India. Moreover, the Indian media no longer seem to be standing up to the government; in the last few years, it has generally toed the government line. The reasons are many, including corporate ownership, regressive laws, and a complete bypass of the media by the powers. The Prime Minister has spoken only to a few selected media houses and has never been asked any tough questions in his five-year tenure. Furthermore, the media has been completely sidelined by this government by it going to the public, directly through social media. All of this has produced a very turgid and messy information situation. With the government also interfering in education, it has become all the more difficult for most educators to introduce critical thinking courses in the country, even though various efforts have been made by Google News Initiative, Facebook and BBC Schools to introduce tools to debunk false information.

2020 ◽  
Vol V (II) ◽  
pp. 50-58
Author(s):  
Muhammad Shahid ◽  
Muhammad Ibrahim ◽  
Ibrar Ullah

This research focuses on fake news and how journalists understand and counter fake news. The researchers used purposive sampling and collected data through in-depth interviews. Members of Mardan and Nowshera press clubs were interviewed regarding how they counter fake news. All the respondents agreed that fake news must be discouraged and that not only the media persons but the government should also take action against media organizations that publish or onair fake news. Most of them said that social media is the main source of fake news and that there should be some kind of regulations on social media to discourage fake news. Some called for training for journalists on how to counter fake news.


2019 ◽  
Vol 22 (12) ◽  
pp. 2108-2127
Author(s):  
Anders Olof Larsson

Political elections see several actors rise to the fore in order to influence and inform voters. Increasingly, such processes take place on social media like Facebook, where media outlets and politicians alike utilize seek promote their respective agenda. Given the recent rise of so-called hyperpartisan media—often described as purveyors of “fake news”—and populist right-wing parties across a series of western contexts, this study details the degree to which these novel actors succeed in overtaking their more mainstream or indeed established competitors when it comes to audience engagement on the mentioned platform. Focusing on the one-month period leading up to the 2018 Swedish national elections, the study finds that right-wing actors across the media and the political sector are more successful in engaging their Facebook followers than their competitors. As audience engagement is a key factor for social media success, the study closes by providing a discussion on the repercussions for professionals within the media and the political sector.


2006 ◽  
pp. 54-75
Author(s):  
Klaus Peter Friedrich

Facing the decisive struggle between Nazism and Soviet communism for dominance in Europe, in 1942/43 Polish communists sojourning in the USSR espoused anti-German concepts of the political right. Their aim was an ethnic Polish ‘national communism’. Meanwhile, the Polish Workers’ Party in the occupied country advocated a maximum intensification of civilian resistance and partisan struggle. In this context, commentaries on the Nazi judeocide were an important element in their endeavors to influence the prevailing mood in the country: The underground communist press often pointed to the fate of the murdered Jews as a warning in order to make it clear to the Polish population where a deficient lack of resistance could lead. However, an agreed, unconditional Polish and Jewish armed resistance did not come about. At the same time, the communist press constantly expanded its demagogic confrontation with Polish “reactionaries” and accused them of shared responsibility for the Nazi murder of the Jews, while the Polish government (in London) was attacked for its failure. This antagonism was intensified in the fierce dispute between the Polish and Soviet governments after the rift which followed revelations about the Katyn massacre. Now the communist propaganda image of the enemy came to the fore in respect to the government and its representatives in occupied Poland. It viewed the government-in-exile as being allied with the “reactionaries,” indifferent to the murder of the Jews, and thus acting ultimately on behalf of Nazi German policy. The communists denounced the real and supposed antisemitism of their adversaries more and more bluntly. In view of their political isolation, they coupled them together, in an undifferentiated manner, extending from the right-wing radical ONR to the social democrats and the other parties represented in the underground parliament loyal to the London based Polish government. Thereby communist propaganda tried to discredit their opponents and to justify the need for a new start in a post-war Poland whose fate should be shaped by the revolutionary left. They were thus paving the way for the ultimate communist takeover


2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
pp. 114-133

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, attacks on the media have been relentless. “Fake news” has become a household term, and repeated attempts to break the trust between reporters and the American people have threatened the validity of the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. In this article, the authors trace the development of fake news and its impact on contemporary political discourse. They also outline cutting-edge pedagogies designed to assist students in critically evaluating the veracity of various news sources and social media sites.


2021 ◽  
pp. 194016122110226
Author(s):  
Ayala Panievsky

As populist campaigns against the media become increasingly common around the world, it is ever more urgent to explore how journalists adopt and respond to them. Which strategies have journalists developed to maintain the public's trust, and what may be the implications for democracy? These questions are addressed using a thematic analysis of forty-five semistructured interviews with leading Israeli journalists who have been publicly targeted by Israel's Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu. The article suggests that while most interviewees asserted that adherence to objective reporting was the best response to antimedia populism, many of them have in fact applied a “strategic bias” to their reporting, intentionally leaning to the Right in an attempt to refute the accusations of media bias to the Left. This strategy was shaped by interviewees' perceived helplessness versus Israel's Prime Minister and his extensive use of social media, a phenomenon called here “the influence of presumed media impotence.” Finally, this article points at the potential ramifications of strategic bias for journalism and democracy. Drawing on Hallin's Spheres theory, it claims that the strategic bias might advance Right-wing populism at present, while also narrowing the sphere of legitimate controversy—thus further restricting press freedom—in the future.


2021 ◽  
pp. 1-41
Author(s):  
Donato VESE

Governments around the world are strictly regulating information on social media in the interests of addressing fake news. There is, however, a risk that the uncontrolled spread of information could increase the adverse effects of the COVID-19 health emergency through the influence of false and misleading news. Yet governments may well use health emergency regulation as a pretext for implementing draconian restrictions on the right to freedom of expression, as well as increasing social media censorship (ie chilling effects). This article seeks to challenge the stringent legislative and administrative measures governments have recently put in place in order to analyse their negative implications for the right to freedom of expression and to suggest different regulatory approaches in the context of public law. These controversial government policies are discussed in order to clarify why freedom of expression cannot be allowed to be jeopardised in the process of trying to manage fake news. Firstly, an analysis of the legal definition of fake news in academia is presented in order to establish the essential characteristics of the phenomenon (Section II). Secondly, the legislative and administrative measures implemented by governments at both international (Section III) and European Union (EU) levels (Section IV) are assessed, showing how they may undermine a core human right by curtailing freedom of expression. Then, starting from the premise of social media as a “watchdog” of democracy and moving on to the contention that fake news is a phenomenon of “mature” democracy, the article argues that public law already protects freedom of expression and ensures its effectiveness at the international and EU levels through some fundamental rules (Section V). There follows a discussion of the key regulatory approaches, and, as alternatives to government intervention, self-regulation and especially empowering users are proposed as strategies to effectively manage fake news by mitigating the risks of undue interference by regulators in the right to freedom of expression (Section VI). The article concludes by offering some remarks on the proposed solution and in particular by recommending the implementation of reliability ratings on social media platforms (Section VII).


2021 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-29
Author(s):  
Agus Darma Yoga Pratama ◽  
I Gusti Ayu Agung Dian Susanthi ◽  
Ni Putu Sri Mariyatni

Klungkung Regency is not only famous for producing songket and endek fabrics, but there are still many other Micro, Small, Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) that have been born and developed there. Semarapura Kaja Village is one of the MSME centers which certainly has a lot of potential that must be supported and developed so that it can become bigger and more independent. However, not all of these MSMEs have adequate capital, strategies, and support to be able to develop rapidly so that synergy and collaboration with the government and other parties are needed to overcome these problems. One solution that can be offered is to carry out promotional activities with interactive advertising language to attract consumer interest through online media in the hope of expanding market share and of course increasing income for MSME in Semarapura Kaja Village. This Community Partnership Program (PKM) educates and assists MSME to create good promotion and marketing strategies, either through print or online media. Assistance in optimizing the use of interactive advertising language in making online advertisements for superior products in Semarapura Kaja Village is targeting MSME who sell Balinese traditional clothing as one of the characteristics of Klungkung Regency which is the center of MSME traditional clothing. In its implementation, it was found that people are still very ignorant not only about advertising language but also with how to create, manage, and develop social media for promotion because there are still social media such as: Instagram and Facebook that are not effective and even not active in uploading content so that the form of implementation of assistance is direct and not in groups to maximize the results. MSMEs that are partners in the Community Partnership Program (PKM) are Dex's Pong and Tri Arta Collection. MSME have been assisted to socialize the importance of professionally managed social media with interactive advertising language, how to create attractive visual content for potential customers, to the importance of publication in print or online media. It is hoped that MSME will be able to consciously and independently promote their products in the future through the media consistently and continuously.


2018 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 193
Author(s):  
Fita Fathurokhmah

This article wants to examine how the media ideology about the concept of radicalism in Islam in the mass media of Republika and Koran Tempo. The Republika newspaper supports and agrees to the Islamic Defenders Front (FPI) both with an understanding of the prohibition of homosexuality and the appointment of news of FPI's violence against homosexuals. The Tempo newspaper is more about renewing ideas such as reporting on the views of the Liberal Islam Network (JIL) in respect of homosexuals. Homosexuality is the same sex lover or the choice of sexuality abnormalities is normal as a human being, it does not need to be criticized but must be respected as individual freedom. There is a fundamental ideological difference between Republika and Koran Tempo by renewing the concept of homosexuality with thinking radicalism on the basis of Islamic teachings. The homosexual issue, FPI applies the meaning of Islamic radicalism from the right-wing side which promotes violence as resistance, while JIL applies the meaning of radicalism from the left-wing side which prioritizes the radicalism of thought and law in the Koran.  AbstrakArtikel ini ingin mengkaji bagaimana ideologi media tentang konsep radikalisme dalam Islam di media massa Republika dan Koran Tempo. Surat kabar Republika mendukung dan setuju pada Front Pembela Islam (FPI) baik dengan pemahaman pelarangan homoseksual dan pengangkatan berita tindak kekerasan FPI melawan homoseksual. Koran Tempo lebih pada pembaharuan pemikiran seperti pemberitaan pandangan Jaringan Islam Liberal (JIL) terkait menghormatinya kaum homoseksual. Homoseksual adalah penyuka sesama jenis atau pilihan kelainan seksualitas itu normal sebagai manusia, tidak perlu dicela tapi harus dihargai sebagai kebebasan individu. Terdapat perbedaan ideologi yang mendasar antara Republika dan Koran Tempo dengan melakukan pembaharuan konsep homoseksual dengan radikalisme berpikir dengan pijakan ajaran Islam. Persoalan homoseksual, FPI menerapkan makna radikalisme Islam dari sisi sayap kanan yang mengedepankan kekerasan sebagai perlawanan, sedangkan JIL menerapkan makna radikalisme dari sisi sayap kiri yang mengutamakan keradikalan pemikiran dan hukum dalam al-Quran.


2018 ◽  
Vol 16 (2) ◽  
pp. 146 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hana Silvana ◽  
Cecep Darmawan

AbstrakFenomena pengunaan media sosial sebagai media online semakin massive pada dekade ini. Kalangan muda sebagai generasi milenial atau digital native merupakan pengguna terbesar dalam penggunaan media sosial saat ini. Penelitian mengenai literasi digital masih jarang dilakukan terutama di Indonesia. Subyek penelitian ini adalah kalangan usia muda dengan rentang usia 17–21 tahun yang merupakan pengguna aktif media sosial. Penelitian ini menggunakan pendekatan kualitatif dengan metode studi kasus. Informan yang dijadikan sampel penelitian sebanyak 5 orang dan 1 orang informan kunci dari pakar literasi media. Temuan yang diperoleh pada penelitian ini menunjukan pentingnya program literasi digital yang memberikan dampak positif bagi pengetahuan, pemahaman dan keterampilan dalam menggunakan media terutama media sosial yang saat ini sering dijadikan sumber informasi oleh khalayak terutama oleh kalangan yang berusia muda. Program ini memberikan kontribusi yang signifikan pada penyebaran informasi dalam menggunakan media massa terutama media sosial yang digunakan oleh kalangan usia muda sehingga ada kesadaran dalam menggunakan media. Pada pendidikan pelatihan (diklat) ini peserta belum semua mempunyai keahlian ini dikarenakan keahlian ini memerlukan latihan yang terus menerus dan konsisten sehingga mereka dapat melakukannya dengan baik. Oleh karena itu pendidikan literasi digital merupakan solusi yang dapat dilakukan oleh pemerintah dan elemen masyarakat dan civitas akademika yang peduli terhadap kemajuan bangsa. AbstractThe phenomenon of the use of social media as an online media is increasingly massive in the use of this decade. Young people as the native millennial or digital generation are the biggest users in the use of social media today. Research on digital literacy is still rare, especially in Indonesia. The subjects of this study were young people aged 17-21 years that were active users of social media. This study uses a qualitative approach to the case study method. The informants who were used as research samples were 5 people and 1 key informant from media literacy experts. The findings obtained in this study indicate the importance of digital literacy programs that have a positive impact on knowledge, understanding and skills in using the media, especially social media which is now often used as a source of information by audiences, especially among young people. information on using mass media, especially social media used by young people so that there is awareness in using the media. In this education participants do not all have this expertise because this skill requires continuous and consistent training so that they can do it well. Therefore digital literacy education is a solution that can be done by the government and elements of society and academics who care about the progress of the nation.


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