Politics of Disinformation

The growing academic research on fake news has been split between two main branches ( Table 2.1). On the one hand, scholars acknowledge the relevance of fake news in discussing the challenges to Western democracy, improving empirical research on the issue (especially in the digital environment). On the other hand, some social epistemologists claimed the term’s abandonment, arguing that it has been adopted as a discursive weapon by authoritarian governments to thwart freedom of expression, to cover up “bad ideology.”

Table 2.1 Scholarly literature on fake news

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.

Additionally, several scholars have analyzed the social media platforms, the algorithms, and the socio-political environment that set up the dissemination of falsehoods disguised as news. This research is not primarily centered on the characterization of fake news but on the environment surrounding its production and circulation in the public sphere. It discusses how the emergence of programmatic advertising is responsible for the surge of low-quality digital content created to generate income from users’ clicks (Graham 2017; Kshetri and Voas 2017; Braun and Eklund 2019). Since affective charged content usually elicits public engagement on social media, purveyors of fake news have a fertile ground on which to fabricate appealing stories to attract users’ interest (Bakir and McStay 2017). Besides, the socio-political background is taken into account in studies that claim the context-sensitive nature of fake news (Humprecht 2018).

Nevertheless, even this line of research lacks a historical perspective that links the macro changes in capital modes of production and circulation and their impact on the epistemic environment. This further elucidation could explain the financial dynamics behind the social media platforms that foster fake news.

Another trend in the descriptive approach has paid attention to the effects of fake news on the cognitive level. While some studies have described the estimated effects of this type of disinformation on citizens, especially on sensitive political issues, a growing amount of experimental research has produced mixed results regarding the negative impacts of fake news on deliberative processes.

Studies focusing on the estimated effects of fake news mainly come from social epistemology (Levy 2017; Rini 2017; Faulkner 2018; Fallis and Mathiesen 2019). According to these scholars, the social media ecosystem has heightened the adverse effects of disinformation since it potentially amplifies the reach of stories posted by its users (Rini 2017). Additionally, platforms assist purveyors of fake news by addressing their content toward those partisan audiences who are most susceptible to their beliefs and share their publications (Levy 2017). Consequently, people who believe in fake news are less capable of making good choices related to their epistemic environment because these false stories often collide with reports diffused by reliable institutions (e.g. mainstream news media, science) (Fallis and Mathiesen 2019).

However, the experimental research so far has shown mixed results that do not necessarily correspond to the negative tone shared by social epistemologists regarding the presumed adverse effects of fake news on the public sphere. Broader studies about the spread of false stories have shown that this type of content circulates much less than expected, even during elections (Allcott and Gentzkow 2017). Vargo et al. (2018) also demonstrated that fake news influenced the agenda of only the alternative right-wing media in the US media landscape from 2014 to 2016.