Читать книгу Politics of Disinformation - Группа авторов - Страница 20

Most research on fake news comes from theoretical approaches that claim a stricter definition of the notion than its prevalent vagueness in public discourse (Jaster and Lanius 2018; Egelhofer and Lecheler 2019). Such studies have claimed a necessary elucidation of fake news to distinguish it from related notions. Accordingly, fake news should not be confounded with rumors and conspiracy theories, because they can be based on either false or real stories. Researchers argue that fake news strictly rests on disinformation (Gelfert 2018; Jaster and Lanius 2018), regardless of the author’s intent (Mukerji 2018; Pepp et al. 2019). However, in some instances, the source’s intent must be considered, because fake news cannot be conflated with satire and parody. While the last two are promoted as entertainment to their audiences (often by comedians), the first is offered as information, misleading some of the public (Jaster and Lanius 2018).

In addition, although the concept has been employed to qualify propaganda disguised as news stories (for instance, press releases conveyed as information by authoritarian governments), a growing body of studies does not conflate fake news with propaganda. Scholars have highlighted that fake news does not necessarily foster an ideology (e.g. “bullshit” utterances covered up as news publications to generate revenue by increasing web traffic) (Mukerji 2018). Likewise, journalistic error is not fake news in this stricter scholarly definition because it usually derives from unintended mistakes or a poor fact-checking process (Jaster and Lanius 2018). Disinformation could be considered fake news insofar as it is misleading by design (Gelfert 2018).

Studies whose primary purpose is to define fake news try to specify why this notion cannot merely be replaced by disinformation – a concept with a more stable scholarly definition (Egelhofer and Lecheler 2019). Despite both terms referring to utterances without commitment to truth and capable of misleading their target audiences, disinformation is not necessarily delivered as news in the manner that fake news is (Gelfert 2018). Disinformation disguised as a media report mimics the appearance of established news sources to gain people’s trust (Pepp et al. 2019). Ultimately, fake news takes advantage of readers’ naivety for political or economic reasons (e.g. to promote an ideology, to generate income from “clickbait”) (Tandoc Jr et al. 2018).

These scholars disagree about the historical roots of fake news and frequently do not dig into this issue. While some authors have contended that this disinformation subgenre was born in digital media, others have signaled the existence of fake news in past centuries (Dentith 2017; Pepp et al. 2019). Moreover, they also disagree about the relationship between the rise of fake news and the downturn of journalistic credibility in recent years.