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Month: November 2016

Everything is now fake news with emotions

Everything is now fake news with emotions

What media consumers reward outlets for are rarely deeply reported stories on matters related to consequential items of public policy. What takes off are emotionally stimulating stories that don’t require of their readers any background knowledge to fully understand them and to opine on them. Source: The Scourge of Dumb News | commentary Social media’s penchant for quick, emotionally outraged responses merely amplifies what the professional media does every day. During the past 10 months, our local newspaper features an…

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Clickbait, fake news and the power of feeling

Clickbait, fake news and the power of feeling

The story linked below is an excellent report – real journalism – about the linkage between fake news as click-bait and the targeting of our emotions: Sentiment analysis can’t be used to show whether news is true or false, but it does show the way headline writers, like marketers, manipulate our emotions to inspire us to click, like or share a story. Source: Clickbait, fake news and the power of feeling Read the whole article – it is spot on.

Did “Fake News” have an impact or is this just propaganda too?

Did “Fake News” have an impact or is this just propaganda too?

I prefer propaganda to describe the use of propaganda methods to influence others to adopt ones agenda. “Fake news”, however, describes a form of propaganda that grew rapidly in 2016. “Fake news” are stories produced to emotionally target selected groups in to an “outrage” response. They quickly Like and Share these fake stories, which ultimately generates clicks for selling advertising. Fake news has been around for  years; Facebook itself noted that “fake news” was becoming a problem back in 2014. Our blog…

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Did "Fake News" have an impact or is this just propaganda too?

Did "Fake News" have an impact or is this just propaganda too?

I prefer propaganda to describe the use of propaganda methods to influence others to adopt ones agenda. “Fake news”, however, describes a form of propaganda that grew rapidly in 2016. “Fake news” are stories produced to emotionally target selected groups in to an “outrage” response. They quickly Like and Share these fake stories, which ultimately generates clicks for selling advertising. Fake news has been around for  years; Facebook itself noted that “fake news” was becoming a problem back in 2014. Our blog…

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Turn off the news

Turn off the news

“…viewers think that staying informed and ‘reacting’ to the news is a form of participation (helping their favorite causes, teams or stocks) and elites have taken it for granted that media narratives are a window into the people’s will. But is it? When news sites deliberately create and cultivate outrage to get clicks, is what people are pissed off about online really an indicator of anything? Do you really care about half the things you share on social media…?” Source:…

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