Panteion University
Department of Communication, Media and Culture
Course: Introduction to Journalism
Professor: Bakounakis Nikolaos
College student: Anastasia Goutou
Words: 1.781
Fake News and Democracy: Define “fake news”. How do they relate to the legacy media and the new media? Find a political example. Why is democracy threatened?
“A lie can go halfway around the world before the truth even gets its boots on”. -Mark Twain
In a world of propaganda, we are not surprised to hear the term “Fake news” so often. But what does “Fake news” mean? Fake news is false stories that for a period of time they are considered to be true, usually created to influence political views. It is a term that is being used for almost four centuries, though its use has increased so much lately to the point that the current president of the United States of America, Donald Trump, claimed in an interview that he came up with the term. Fake news, usually, come from politicians or political parties, the media, the church, or even the school. That is because, just like propaganda, false stories have a certain goal to achieve, which is, almost exclusively, to manipulate the citizens or the audience.
In the definition of “Fake news” we have to include false stories that are not connected with politics, media, religion, and education but with ideologies and conspiracy theories. Three great and very common examples are; the belief that the earth is flat, the confidence that citizens are being sprayed with chemicals by the government, and the idea that there is no such thing as global warming. Of course, neither of these paradigms is true, but, unluckily, they are considered to be by many people. Ideas like these are usually reproduced through the Internet and chat forums and since more and more people are being fooled and distracted, it is significant to refer to them when we analyze fake news.
Furthermore, fake news is also used when nothing interesting is happening in the political, economical, social, or cultural field but the media have to show something to their audiences. Each newspaper, radio program, television program, or site has to cover a certain amount of news and when there is nothing to present, they have to make up a story to fill their time on air or their pages. Also, sometimes the media create fake news just to draw the attention of the public in order to achieve the highest number of viewers, listeners, or readers. So, it doesn’t always have to be about propaganda and political influence; it can be something as simple as announcing the death of a celebrity when he or she is actually alive and well.
However, due to journalistic ethics, journalists are obligated to tell the truth to their audiences objectively and unaffectedly. And even though they do uncover big secrets and lies, they mostly hide certain things or lie about a fact in the exchange for recognition and money. Of course, there are cases where even the media have been manipulated by a person or a group with power (an example is down below).
In an effort to understand the relationship between fake news and both legacy and new media, we have to examine the last ones separately beginning with chronological order. Since it was the first massive media, the newspaper had decent aims: it wanted to inform the citizens about political or economical developments and to cause concern and debate. Its tools were the reportage, the accurate recording of events, and the research. On the other hand, the press wasn’t just the first media but, for a long period of time, it was the only existing media, which means that the readers couldn’t actually check the information that was given to them to see if it was true or not and, surely, this makes the appearance of fake news much easier.
Moving on, when the radio was invented everyone admired its uniqueness. Its ability not only to inform but also to entertain its audience with beautiful music made the radio successful for a little while. Unfortunately, the nature of the radio could also be favored to fake news because when someone hears the information without having it written down in front of him or without the chance of rehearing the same speech or dialogue and with the possibility of mishearing, he doesn’t have the proper amount of time to process it so he just accepts it. Indeed, many dictators, in recent history, relied on oral propaganda and used the radio as a propagandistic tool.
The last legacy media is television. The combination of sound and image was enough to attract the audience. Another capacity of television is that it requires no effort at all to watch because everything is in front of your eyes and there is no need to use your imagination, or have a certain education to understand its messages, unlike the other existing media. These two “assets” expanded the percentage of TV viewers and eliminated the percentage of radio listeners and newspaper readers, but, at the same time, they can transform their audience into passive receivers of its texts. And since the power of an image can be ever more manipulating than a speech, the TV may be the best media to propound fake news, until the Internet was invented.
The new media is based on the Internet and include social media like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Snapchat or informative websites and blogs. The interesting thing with this kind of media is that the sources of information are unlimited, something that has both advantages and disadvantages. On the one hand, not all of the sources of the news are being paid by politicians, political parties, or big companies, unlikely most of the television channels -which also are less in number- so a big percentage of news is really related to objectivity. On the other hand, since the amount of information is huge, the audience doesn’t know what and who should they believe. It is significant to add that in social media the consumers can be the producers at any time. With this unique feature, everyone can contradict publicly a fake story and directly promote the right one, but also anyone can, anonymously or with a pseudonym, spread rumors about anything or anyone he or she wants, without censorship, control, or penalty.
In the end, no matter which media someone prefers to watch, he/she should be wise enough not to believe everything he/she sees or listens to and cross information twice and thrice before accepting it. Until the operation of media changes and proceeds to condemn such events, citizens should be alert and have the critical ability not to fall for every politician’s or journalist’s lie.
The most known example of fake news affecting politics, and also having a seriously negative impact on humanity, is the war between Americans and Iraqis. On March the 20th of 2003, the president of the United States of America, George Bush, and the United Kingdom under Prime Minister Tony Blair, conducted the war on Iraq with the excuse that Iraqis were having nuclear weapons. This military operation was a part of a general war on terrorism, that is, every war USA began after the events of September 11th of 2001. The problem with this particular war is that, in fact, there were not any nuclear, mass destructive weapons in the hands of the Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. It’s even sadder if we consider that G. Bush already knew that before he started fighting Iraq. Several examinations had been conducted, both post and during the war, and no weapons were ever found. These facts were hidden from the public and false information had been all over the media. The government managed to scare both media and citizens with the possibility of Saddam Hussein attacking the USA because president Bush connected his name with the tragic events of September 11th of 2001 (another big lie). With this information on their minds, a great percentage of Americans finally agreed with the Iraqi invasion.
Apparently, fake news can be threatening to peace and, in consequence, democracy. Democracy is the constitution founded on sovereignty. The word derives from the Greek words “δήμος’’ which means people/ citizens and “κράτος’’ which means power. Due to overpopulation, the citizens of a country proceed to elections with the view to find representatives worthy enough to be their voices. The elected government has no choice but to protect people’s basic rights and follow the will of the majority. Unfortunately, nowadays, the work of democracy is being hampered by many things and one of them is propaganda and fake news.
A great value of this constitution is the following “your freedom stops when the other person’s freedom starts” and by creating and spreading false stories about another human being you violate his rights. You take from him/her the ability to speak and stand up for himself/herself because your lie is more interesting, no matter that it can cause major problems to this person’s work and social life. In case the fake news doesn’t refer to just one person but to a whole other group, things are getting even worse. For example, many politicians implied that foreigners and immigrants are taking the jobs of the citizens and that they are to blame for the increase in unemployment and it is not the government’s fault. People who believed this kind of accusation attacked both physically and verbally foreigners and participated in racist actions. I think that is the best example to illustrate that fake news can increase unnecessary social conflicts and add to the rupture of our society, causing more depression and fear among the residents of a country. And, finally, as the example above shows, if the lie refers to a whole nation (like Iraq) it can lead to bad relations with other countries and even war, so peace and sincerity are sacrificed to the altar of political and economical interests.
Proportionally, fake news about the economy can destroy companies and small or big businessmen and even lead many families to poverty with rumors about the stock exchange. Political false stories can pilot citizens to wrong and catastrophic decisions. The most recent example is the US elections for president in 2016 where Donald Trump and his supporters released fake stories about his opponent Hillary Clinton, like the one that insisted her participation in child sex trafficking. Surely, we cannot only blame Trump and his voters since the media and journalists did wrong too; they tricked citizens with false poll results and calm them with the implications of Clinton winning the elections. This paradigm shows exactly how false statements can guide people into voting for something that isn’t actually their choice and becoming victims of manipulation.
In conclusion, there should be stricter laws limiting the freedom of speech and expression with the destructive effects of fake news, since the problems propaganda causes worldwide are closer and closer to the catalysis of democracy.
Sources:
Books:
N. Solomon & R. Enlich (2003) ‘‘Target Iraq: What the news media didn’t tell you’’ Content Books New York, (p. 43-52)
E.S. Herman (1992) ‘‘Beyond hypocrisy: decoding the news in an age of propaganda including the doublespeak dictionary’’ South End Press Boston MA
Μ. Κοκκώνης, Γρ. Πασχαλίδης, Φ. Μπαντιμαρούδης (2010) ‘‘Ο πολιτισμός του ήχου και του θεάματος’’ εκδόσεις Κριτική, (σελ. 429-448)
Internet:
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/10/08/politics/trump-huckabee-fake/index.html
http://longreads.news247.gr/fakenews
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/bizarre-hillary-clinton-conspiracy-theories-8839048
photography: https://estudiamarketing.info/en-que-consiste-la-investigacion-de-mercados/
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