Fake News – is it a new label for Propaganda
What we refer to as “fake-news” is known as “misinformation campaigns” and they are as old as Waterloo…
Therein lies our first clue: misinformation campaign. It exists because it help somebody else’s cause. Now as to why it works: because that’s how human psyche works.Truth and reality are messy; in fact it’s hard to agree on an objective truth from our personal perspective, for, we have just one world, but we live in different ones. we like simple answers; especially if they are aligned with our world-view.
Please notice that so called “fake-news” seems to always originate from “the other side” and never from your side. Voter fraud when the other side’s candidate wins, but nobody wonders about voter fraud in the cases where your side wins…
As for a more scientific answer, we can read some studies and research papers about the subject
https://www.apa.org/research/action/speaking-of-psychology/fake-news
https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/5/1/eaau4586
The scary stuff have been around for about a decade or so. When Facebook came out I had proclaimed “facebook (social media) is the worst thing that happened to humanity” Because we are not ready for it, we are not geared for it, we are consumed by our own image and it’s destroying the societal fabric faster than we can realize what’s happening.
Because of this
Back to our subject – more reading is in order
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/06/fake-news-republicans-democrats/591211/
https://www.turnitin.com/blog/4-reasons-why-fake-news-is-so-compelling
https://time.com/5362183/the-real-fake-news-crisis/
A closing proverb:
A lie travels around the world three times before truth gets a chance to put its pants on.
While I see parallels between “fake news” narrative and “propaganda” I don’t agree that they are mutually exclusive, though there are huge overlaps; and neither are new in our social consciousness. Goebbels had the complete handle on fake news (aka The Big Lie) and the allies had the complete handle on propaganda.I wonder if they are two sides of the same coin?
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