{"id":70,"date":"2017-05-05T01:23:00","date_gmt":"2017-05-05T01:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/research.prattsils.org\/fakenews\/?page_id=70"},"modified":"2017-05-05T01:23:00","modified_gmt":"2017-05-05T01:23:00","slug":"about","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/about\/","title":{"rendered":"About"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400\">\u201cHoax,\u201d \u201cconspiracy,\u201d \u201cbias,\u201d \u201cyellow journalism,\u201d \u201cpropaganda\u201d: these terms are used perennially by journalists, politicians, and the public alike, but none more so recently than \u201cfake news.\u201d <span style=\"font-weight: 400\">Claims about the influential role of \u201cfake news\u201d in the 2016 Presidential Election necessitate an inquiry into who uses this term, how often, in what venues, and about which sources and topics. Rather than evaluating news content for its accuracy, we approach the circulation of the term \u201cfake news\u201d here as a rhetorical device, used to make political assertions about the truth of various stories and sources. By\u00a0analyzing both\u00a0traditional media (print and television\u00a0news) as well as social media (Twitter), we attempt to paint a broad picture of the information ecosphere immediately following the election and chart the course of &#8220;fake news&#8221; within it.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<h2>Journalistic\u00a0objectivity<\/h2>\n<p>Appeals to &#8220;fake news&#8221; in the 21st Century should be understood within\u00a0the context of journalistic objectivity, a concept that Ward (2004) describes as having six\u00a0features:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>factuality<\/li>\n<li>fairness<\/li>\n<li>non-bias<\/li>\n<li>independence<\/li>\n<li>non-interpretation<\/li>\n<li>neutrality and detachment (19).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Though these features are now commonplace in the rhetoric\u00a0of journalism within democracies, Ward\u00a0traces\u00a0the long history of their development over several centuries, culminating only in the twentieth century and only for a few decades. Jensen (2006) is critical of this relatively recent concept of professional neutrality\u2014one that he terms a &#8220;myth&#8221;\u2014claiming impartiality\u00a0simply sides with\u00a0status quo\u00a0politics. Both Jensen and Ward point to previous eras in which partisan journalism was commonplace and there was no expectation of\u00a0impartiality in reporting.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Ward credits the seventeenth century with creating printing mechanisms\u00a0independent of church and state, one capable of providing the public directly with\u00a0information\u2014albeit partisan and occasionally\u00a0checked by press controls. By the eighteenth century,\u00a0the press emerged fully as a &#8220;fourth estate&#8221;\u00a0operating in the public interest and\u00a0&#8220;part of the people&#8217;s self-governing process&#8221; (171).\u00a0With the rise of nineteenth-century &#8220;objective society&#8221; (impersonal, science-based, and focused on fair procedures), journalism also developed a fact-based approach, run by independent professionals operating under a burgeoning ethic of objectivity.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_111\" style=\"width: 510px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/https:\/\/www.loc.gov\/resource\/ppmsca.29087\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-111\" class=\"size-large wp-image-111\" src=\"http:\/\/research.prattsils.org\/fakenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2017\/04\/The_fin_de_sie\u0300cle_newspaper_proprietor_cropped-1024x568.jpg\" alt=\"A man with &quot;fake news&quot; rushing to the printing press.\" width=\"500\" srcset=\"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/04\/The_fin_de_sie\u0300cle_newspaper_proprietor_cropped-1024x568.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/04\/The_fin_de_sie\u0300cle_newspaper_proprietor_cropped-300x166.jpg 300w, https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/04\/The_fin_de_sie\u0300cle_newspaper_proprietor_cropped-768x426.jpg 768w, https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/6\/2017\/04\/The_fin_de_sie\u0300cle_newspaper_proprietor_cropped.jpg 1525w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-111\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Detail from &#8220;The Fin de Si\u00e8cle Newspaper Proprietor&#8221; (1894)<\/p><\/div>\n<p>By the mid-twentieth century, objectivity was in full swing,\u00a0a response &#8220;designed\u00a0\u00a0in part to persuade governments and the public that journalism could regulate itself&#8221; (223). This ideal, however, conflicted occasionally with the idea of journalism as a watchdog of governments, and as new media, particularly broadcast journalism, arose, it\u00a0took on an increasingly personal tone and interest-based reporting, resembling the partisan newspapers of the nineteenth century.<\/p>\n<p>The twenty-first century, especially in light of\u00a0social media, presents new problems for the concept of journalistic objectivity: what is to be understood as reporting today? who counts as a reporter, falling under whatever professional ethics can be said to exist? how does distribution of information by large numbers of citizens figure into the responsibility of journalists in reporting?<\/p>\n<h2>The 2016 Presidential Election<\/h2>\n<p>In the months following the 2016 Presidential Election, there was widespread discussion of &#8220;fake news&#8221; within journalistic and popular sources.\u00a0Several\u00a0academic panels and papers\u00a0(Alcott &amp; Gentzkow 2017; Teixeira da Silva 2017) have already begun\u00a0addressing the role of fake news in the election. Two Pew Internet studies are particularly relevant in understanding human information behavior leading up to the election.<\/p>\n<p>A December 2016 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2016\/12\/15\/many-americans-believe-fake-news-is-sowing-confusion\">Pew report on fake news<\/a>\u00a0found widespread belief\u00a0that\u00a0fake news causes confusion, though U.S. adults also reported general confidence\u00a0in their ability to identify fake news. About one-third\u00a0reported seeing\u00a0fake political news online and nearly one-quarter said\u00a0they shared fake political news online.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0January 2017 <a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2017\/01\/18\/trump-clinton-voters-divided-in-their-main-source-for-election-news\/\">Pew study of\u00a0information sources\u00a0by\u00a0voting patterns<\/a>\u00a0found that Clinton and Trump voters differed in their sources for news.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2017\/01\/18\/trump-clinton-voters-divided-in-their-main-source-for-election-news\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2017\/01\/17151224\/PJ_2017.01.18_Election-News-Sources_0-01.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In addition, that study found that\u00a0Democrats and Republicans differ in the platforms they use to get news:<br \/>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.journalism.org\/2017\/01\/18\/trump-clinton-voters-divided-in-their-main-source-for-election-news\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/assets.pewresearch.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/13\/2017\/01\/17151309\/PJ_2017.01.18_Election-News-Sources_0-03.png\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Taken together, these two Pew studies suggest that a broad study of &#8220;fake news&#8221; surrounding the election is needed, and that it should include both traditional journalism (print and broadcast) as well as social media.<\/p>\n<h2>A\u00a0discourse\u00a0analysis<\/h2>\n<p>There are several ongoing attempts to define and classify fake news and determine the means by which it is generated and transmitted. While we regard these as important, we are interested, here, in the &#8220;fake news&#8221; discourse\u2014the ways in which this term circulates in the period immediately following the 2016 Presidential Election.\u00a0<span style=\"font-weight: 400\">The project relies on evidence of \u201cfake news\u201d as a mutable term in the wake of the election, moving gradually from a qualifier for unfactual information towards a rhetorical metonym for a political \u201copposition party.\u201d Ultimately our project is not designed to advocate a partisan position. Rather, we look to collect data, analyze the patterns, and make the research available to the public as a resource for their own edification. <\/span><\/p>\n<h2>References<\/h2>\n<p>Allcott, Hunt and Matthew Gentzkow (2017). &#8220;Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election.&#8221; <em>Journal of Economic Perspectives<\/em> 31(2): 211\u201336. Available at\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/full_issue.php?doi=10.1257\/jep.31.2#page=213\">https:\/\/www.aeaweb.org\/full_issue.php?doi=10.1257\/jep.31.2#page=213<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Jensen, Robert (2006). &#8220;The Myth of the Neutral Professional.&#8221; <em>Electronic Magazine of Multicultural Education<\/em> 8(2). Available at\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.523.4060&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf\">http:\/\/citeseerx.ist.psu.edu\/viewdoc\/download?doi=10.1.1.523.4060&amp;rep=rep1&amp;type=pdf<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Teixeira da Silva, Jaime A\u00a0(2017). &#8220;The False Donald J. Trump Article and the Ethics of Misleading Journalism.&#8221;\u00a0<em>Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology<\/em> 68(4):1061\u201363.<\/p>\n<p>Ward, Stephen (2004).\u00a0<em>The Invention of Journalism Ethics: The Path to Objectivity and Beyond<\/em>. McGill-Queen&#8217;s University Press.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cHoax,\u201d \u201cconspiracy,\u201d \u201cbias,\u201d \u201cyellow journalism,\u201d \u201cpropaganda\u201d: these terms are used perennially by journalists, politicians, and the public alike, but none more so recently than \u201cfake news.\u201d Claims about the influential role of \u201cfake news\u201d in the 2016 Presidential Election necessitate&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":111,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"template-fullwidth.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-70","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/70\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/studentwork.prattsi.org\/fakenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}