Slides for "Fake News: Why It Matters and How to Fight It" an event hosted by Eugene Public Library, May 23 2017. "UO Journalism professors Damian Radcliffe and Peter Laufer explore the current debate about fake news. These information experts will offer historical insights, contemporary analysis, and practical tools to empower the public in telling fact from fiction." https://www.eugene-or.gov/Calendar.aspx?EID=12837

1. Understanding
Fake
News
Damian Radcliffe
University of Oregon
May 2017

2. Traditional Definition
News written and published with the intent to
mislead, in order to gain financially or politically.

3. Why it matters
“Stories that are provably false, have enormous
traction… and are consumed by millions of people.”
Michael Radutzky, a producer of CBS 60 Minutes

4. Some recent examples

5. Distinctions
• Not the same as news satire.
• Fake news is a type of yellow journalism.
Little
or
no
researched
stories
that
became
popular
in
19th
century
Based
upon
sensationalism
and
crude
exaggeration

6. Is the term a misnomer?
Fake News means:
“Stories that are fabricated out of thin air.
By most measures, deliberately, and by any definition,
that's a lie.”
Guy Campanile, also a 60 Minutes producer

7. Origins

8. Fake News and propaganda
• In theory, Fake News may be divided into:
- That which is made for profit
- Propaganda meant to influence
• We may also distinguish between:
- People who spread it unintentionally
- Those who spread it with an intent

9. Transformative technologies
• The advent of the printing press in the 15th century
revolutionized access to / dissemination of information.
• Invention and the mainstreaming of the Internet
widened access and the power to spread information.
Including fake news.

10. Pre-dates even that
• Demonstrable in 1st century B.C.
• Power struggle between Augustus Caesar’s successors
Octovian and Anthony led to a smear campaign.
• Mark Antony committed suicide following misinformation.

11. Historic examples: 1600s
17th Century
• Publications became widespread.
• No standard of journalistic ethics to follow.
• With Galileo’s trial, the demand for verifiable news
increased.

12. Historic examples: 1700s
18th Century
• Publishers of fake news fined and banned in the
Netherlands.
• Gerard Lodewijk van der Macht, banned four times by
Dutch authorities. Each time he moved and restarted
his press.

13. 1782: Boston, USA
• Benjamin Franklin spread fake news to intensify the
American revolution.

14. Historic examples: 1800s
19th Century
• The Great Moon Hoax of 1835.

15. Historic examples: 1900s
20th Century
• Anti-German (fake) stories that the Germans ran
factories using human fat as raw materials published
during WWI.
• New York Times reporting on Russia, fake news
scandal, 1932–1933.

16. Present Day

17. How it works
As it always has:
• Fake news often employs eye-catching headlines or
fabricated news stories to increase readership.
Plus:
• As in the case of internet-based stories, online
sharing and click/view revenues.

18. What’s different
• Easier to do than ever.
• Designed to deceive readers.
Ø And to maximize traffic and profit.
• New platforms (Facebook, Google Ads, Search, Programmatic)
don’t distinguish fact from fiction.
• Lack of visual clues: fake vs real look same.

19. Macedonian teenagers
• Many online pro-Trump fake news stories were created
in a small city in Macedonia by teenagers paid to
generate sensationalist stories.

20. Large reach in 2016 election
• Voters interacted with more fake news on Facebook than
with real news. (Source: BuzzFeed)

21. The rise of the bots

22. Realistic looking websites

23. Case Studies

24. Mainstream Media
• Bret Baier, Fox News

26. Social Media

27. Eric Tucker Tweet

28. Trumpspeak

30. What can we do?

31. Consume content critically

32. Understand the ecosystem

33. Research / Measure

35. Not unique to the USA
• Italy
• India
• Germany
• China

36. Moving forward

37. Some measures being taken
• Fact-checking sites such as Snopes.com and
FactCheck.org, have posted guides to spotting and
avoiding fake news websites.
• Facebook and Google taking measures to combat
fake news.
• In April 2017, Jimmy Wales announced Wikitribune.

38. New tech-led solutions

39. More research
Q: Do we overstate the problem?
Fabricated stories favoring Trump were shared a total of
30 million times, nearly quadruple the number of pro-
Hillary shares in the run-up to the election, says Stanford’s
Matthew Gentzkow.
Even so, he and his co-author found the most widely
circulated hoaxes were seen by only a small fraction
of Americans.

40. See the opportunity

41. Email: damianr@uoregon.edu
Twitter: @damianradcliffe
Web: damianradcliffe.com
Thanks for listening.