When it comes to "fake news," there is nothing more destructive and dangerous however, there is also not anything more popular. The dramatic problems which occur within news outlets are particularly the fake ones.
Many people believe "fake news" is a threat to democracy. In the final three months of the U.S Presidential election, fake news stories brought more engagement than the top news networks across the country. Rumours were spread worldwide bashing the candidates in the campaign which may have impacted their reputation in a negative or positive way.
In a sense, people want to hear what they truly believe. When it comes to challenging someone's political beliefs, it activates the same areas of the brain involved in personal identity and emotional response to threat. Therefore, if a person hears something that satisfies their beliefs, it's much easier to believe, rather than think of it as "fake."
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| "Fake news" story during the U.S. Presidential campaign in 2016. |
The most shocking findings in 2016, shows that 93 per cent of college students couldn't identify lobbyists websites and biased sources of information. The findings were equally close for high school students, less than 20 per cent whom knew that looking at one photograph was not enough evidence to prove if a story was true or not.
Social media has made it possible to spread news around the globe in seconds and make it viral in minutes. The term has become widely used- too widely. But it's understandable there's confusion when some "fake news" is only a bit fake, or fake for an arguably legitimate reason.
Some people say it's easy to tell "fake news" from "real news". However, that is not true. A recent study carried out by Stanford's Graduate School and college students assessed more than 7,800 responses from middle school, high school, and college students in the U.S. on their ability to assess information sources.
It's not that the readers are stupid, or even necessarily oblivious; it's that the news format is easy to imitate and some true stories are outlandish enough to believe. In its greatest form, "fake news" is completely made up, manipulated to resemble credible journalism and attract maximum attention and, with it, advertising revenue.
Unfortunately, "fake news" will always be around and there's really no way to get rid of it. There will always be at least one news outlet that wishes to become more popular, by giving their readers what they want to hear. However by doing this, it does bring more attention to their websites, opposed to the real ones with information that readers disagree with.
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| Abraham Lincoln quote, 2006. |
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