There are actually fake stories -- completely made up -- so it is by definition "fake" news. Rod
From: mcambre@ualberta.ca Date: Fri, 9 Dec 2016 12:37:35 -0500 To: Todd.O'Neill@mtsu.edu CC: air-l@listserv.aoir.org Subject: Re: [Air-L] Fake News
Instead of fake news, how about disinformation? The partial and/or misleading of unverified events posing as information but tending more towards gossip, scandal and slander, with the intent to polarize debate and damage reputations. Often put forth from behind masked partisan lenses.
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 12:23 PM, Todd O'Neill <Todd.O'Neill@mtsu.edu> wrote:
FWIW, I think the term "fake news" gives this term a kind of legitimacy. News is news. When we differentiate between real and fake news we're on slippery slope. We have adopted a term put forth by popular media not necessarily journalists. I don't know what the term should be. Commentary seems to be part of the label I think. Any thoughts?
Sent from my iPhone
On Dec 9, 2016, at 11:16 AM, MC Cambre <mcambre@ualberta.ca> wrote:
Worthy point and well noted. Pedagogically, I stress the difference between image and substance, and I teach about the word propaganda and how it rose and fell in popularity. I don't know if anyone uses this piece from 1952, I found it a gem for helping students view critically. "Propaganda Techniques In Institutional Advertising" BY LEONARD 1. PEARLIN AND MORRIS ROSENBERG 1952 in PUBLIC OPINION QUARTERLY, SPRING
It specifically points to institutional advertising, but we can say that much that is being called fake news uses these techniques.
For what it is worth! cc
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 9:47 AM, Sarah Ann Oates <soates@umd.edu> wrote:
Just have to jump here and refer to the comment above that noted that "What's accurate news for one group may be fake news for another. News is socially constructed." That is certainly a dominant guiding principle from communication studies BUT what that is very different from news that is deliberately constructed as propaganda. There is indeed a central organizing principle of news in the service of society -- it can failed or weak, but journalism as a profession in the United States is concerned with the broader principle that news creates informed citizens and without informed citizens you cannot have a democracy. You cannot have a democracy without journalism. So the journalism may be flawed and -- in the case of the US -- in particular challenged by a failing economic model of traditional media outlets as advertising shifts to more powerful social-media outlets, etc. There is a qualitative difference between the attempt to inform the public and the attempt to deceive the public. We can measure the value of news by criteria such as giving voice to both sides, an attempt to explain issues, quoting accurately, attempting to give facts, owning up to and correcting an errors, attempting to be objective. As an ex-journalist and a journalism educator, I ask people to stop saying that news and propaganda are really the same thing. I've heard it for years and it's simply not true. Many journalists risk their lives to bring us as close to the truth as they can. Propagandists deliberately lie, cheat, deceive, misinform and seek to use information for their own means. And yes, I know the arguments about media in service to the state, in service to capitalism, in service to communism, in service to a media owner etc. But please, people, as communication scholars we need to recognize, support, and try to make better the ONE THING between us and authoritarianism -- a free press.
On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 9:31 AM, Joshua Braun <jabraun@journ.umass.edu> wrote:
Also, there's the Nature voting study, which—while not on news specifically—might be seen as raising some interesting questions about whether messages circulated via social media might be more influential because of the social context. I.e., When news is circulated via social networks it is often being spread *by* influencers, which affects the fit with traditional two-step flow models.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html
Not arguing a side here. Just suggesting that applying Lazarsfeld, etc. might require some rethinking of context.
Cheers, Josh
On 12/09/2016 08:36 AM, Jeanine Finn wrote: There is a study of the 2004 elections that might be useful while we wait for the dust to settle from 2016.
Carlson, M. (2007). Blogs and journalistic authority. Journalism Studies, 8(2) <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/ 14616700601148861>, 264–279. doi:10.1080/14616700601148861
This paper asserts that the role of blogs cannot be adequately understood without examining the established media context in which they appear. Blogs operate along side, in conjunction with, and in opposition to established vehicles for political information, which creates tension among journalists seeking to preserve their authority. As a site to observe the blog-traditional journalism relationship, this article examines the reaction by journalists and others to blogs’ role in US Election Day 2004 coverage. Much of the attention by journalists focuses on assessing the well-publicized decision by some blogs to release incomplete exit polls erroneously predicting a victory for Democratic candidate John Kerry. This discourse works to make sense of the status and credibility of blogs while simultaneously allowing journalists to negotiate their role as authoritative providers of political news. Ultimately, the discourse underlines the dynamism of news in a contemporary media environment marked by new forms of complexity and competitiveness. http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700601148861 < http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700601148861>
> On Dec 9, 2016, at 7:29 AM, Yosem Companys <companys@stanford.edu <mailto:companys@stanford.edu>> wrote: > > Exactly. I was wondering whether anyone has studied whether news -- fake or > real -- had any tangible effect on the 2016 election outcome. Wouldn't > Lazarsfeld et al. say "no," at least not directly? > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lazarsfeld < https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lazarsfeld> > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_flow_of_communication > > There is a long tradition of studying the effects of news on people's > attitudes (or attitude change). My recollection is that news in and of > itself has little influence on people's attitudes unless mediated by an > influencer (i.e., hence Lazarsfeld 2-step flow of communication). But > experiments show the opposite: News has a strong effect on people's > attitudes, though the effect wanes over time. > > Anyone studied 2016 from this perspective? > > On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:20 PM, Ronald E. Rice <rrice@comm.ucsb.edu> wrote: > >> Perhaps more important and interesting: anyone have any studies showing >> that real (accurate, true) news influenced the 2016 presidential election >> outcome? ;=) >> -- >> Ronald E. Rice >> Arthur N. Rupe Professor in the Social Effects of Mass Communication >> International Communication Association President 2006-2007 >> Dept. of Communication, 4005 Social Sciences & Media Studies Bldg (SSMS) >> University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020 >> Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102 >> rrice@comm.ucsb.edu; http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/people/ronald-e-rice >> >> >> Quoting Yosem Companys <companys@stanford.edu>: >> >> Anyone know of any academic studies showing that fake (social media) news >>> influenced the 2016 presidential election outcome? >>> >>> Thanks, >>> Yosem >>> _______________________________________________ >>> The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list >>> is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org >>> Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: >>> http://listserv.aoir.org/listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org >>> >>> Join the Association of Internet Researchers: >>> http://www.aoir.org/ >>> >> >> >> > _______________________________________________ > The Air-L@listserv.aoir.org mailing list > is provided by the Association of Internet Researchers http://aoir.org > Subscribe, change options or unsubscribe at: http://listserv.aoir.org/ listinfo.cgi/air-l-aoir.org > > Join the Association of Internet Researchers: > http://www.aoir.org/
<----------------------------------------------------> Jeanine Finn, PhD Researcher School of Information University of Texas at Austin jefinn@utexas.edu <mailto:jefinn@utexas.edu> http://jeaninefinn.me <http://jeaninefinn.me/>
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