[Air-L] Fake News

Fri Dec 9 06:47:56 PST 2016

Just have to jump here and refer to the comment above that noted that "What's
accurate news for one group
may be fake news for another. News is socially constructed." That is
certainly a dominant guiding principle from communication studies BUT what
that is very different from news that is deliberately constructed as
propaganda. There is indeed a central organizing principle of news in the
service of society -- it can failed or weak, but journalism as a profession
in the United States is concerned with the broader principle that news
creates informed citizens and without informed citizens you cannot have a
democracy. You cannot have a democracy without journalism. So the
journalism may be flawed and -- in the case of the US -- in particular
challenged by a failing economic model of traditional media outlets as
advertising shifts to more powerful social-media outlets, etc. There is a
qualitative difference between the attempt to inform the public and the
attempt to deceive the public. We can measure the value of news by criteria
such as giving voice to both sides, an attempt to explain issues, quoting
accurately, attempting to give facts, owning up to and correcting an
errors, attempting to be objective. As an ex-journalist and a journalism
educator, I ask people to stop saying that news and propaganda are really
the same thing. I've heard it for years and it's simply not true. Many
journalists risk their lives to bring us as close to the truth as they can.
Propagandists deliberately lie, cheat, deceive, misinform and seek to use
information for their own means. And yes, I know the arguments about media
in service to the state, in service to capitalism, in service to communism,
in service to a media owner etc. But please, people, as communication
scholars we need to recognize, support, and try to make better the ONE
THING between us and authoritarianism -- a free press.

On Fri, Dec 9, 2016 at 9:31 AM, Joshua Braun <jabraun at journ.umass.edu>
wrote:

> Also, there's the Nature voting study, which—while not on news
> specifically—might be seen as raising some interesting questions about
> whether messages circulated via social media might be more influential
> because of the social context. I.e., When news is circulated via social
> networks it is often being spread *by* influencers, which affects the
> fit with traditional two-step flow models.
>
> http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v489/n7415/full/nature11421.html
>
> Not arguing a side here. Just suggesting that applying Lazarsfeld, etc.
> might require some rethinking of context.
>
> Cheers,
> Josh
>
> On 12/09/2016 08:36 AM, Jeanine Finn wrote:
> > There is a study of the 2004 elections that might be useful while we
> wait for the dust to settle from 2016.
> >
> > Carlson, M. (2007). Blogs and journalistic authority. Journalism
> Studies, 8(2) <http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/
> 14616700601148861>, 264–279. doi:10.1080/14616700601148861
> >
> > This paper asserts that the role of blogs cannot be adequately
> understood without examining the established media context in which they
> appear. Blogs operate along side, in conjunction with, and in opposition to
> established vehicles for political information, which creates tension among
> journalists seeking to preserve their authority. As a site to observe the
> blog-traditional journalism relationship, this article examines the
> reaction by journalists and others to blogs’ role in US Election Day 2004
> coverage. Much of the attention by journalists focuses on assessing the
> well-publicized decision by some blogs to release incomplete exit polls
> erroneously predicting a victory for Democratic candidate John Kerry. This
> discourse works to make sense of the status and credibility of blogs while
> simultaneously allowing journalists to negotiate their role as
> authoritative providers of political news. Ultimately, the discourse
> underlines the dynamism of news in a contemporary media environment marked
> by new forms of complexity and competitiveness.
> > http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700601148861 <
> http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/14616700601148861>
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Dec 9, 2016, at 7:29 AM, Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu
> <mailto:companys at stanford.edu>> wrote:
> >>
> >> Exactly. I was wondering whether anyone has studied whether news --
> fake or
> >> real -- had any tangible effect on the 2016 election outcome. Wouldn't
> >> Lazarsfeld et al. say "no," at least not directly?
> >>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lazarsfeld <
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Lazarsfeld>
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two-step_flow_of_communication
> >>
> >> There is a long tradition of studying the effects of news on people's
> >> attitudes (or attitude change). My recollection is that news in and of
> >> itself has little influence on people's attitudes unless mediated by an
> >> influencer (i.e., hence Lazarsfeld 2-step flow of communication). But
> >> experiments show the opposite: News has a strong effect on people's
> >> attitudes, though the effect wanes over time.
> >>
> >> Anyone studied 2016 from this perspective?
> >>
> >> On Thu, Dec 8, 2016 at 9:20 PM, Ronald E. Rice <rrice at comm.ucsb.edu>
> wrote:
> >>
> >>> Perhaps more important and interesting: anyone have any studies showing
> >>> that real (accurate, true) news influenced the 2016 presidential
> election
> >>> outcome?  ;=)
> >>> --
> >>> Ronald E. Rice
> >>> Arthur N. Rupe Professor in the Social Effects of Mass Communication
> >>> International Communication Association President 2006-2007
> >>> Dept. of Communication, 4005 Social Sciences & Media Studies Bldg
> (SSMS)
> >>> University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106-4020
> >>> Ph: 805-893-8696; Fax: 805-893-7102
> >>> rrice at comm.ucsb.edu; http://www.comm.ucsb.edu/people/ronald-e-rice
> >>>
> >>>
> >>> Quoting Yosem Companys <companys at stanford.edu>:
> >>>
> >>> Anyone know of any academic studies showing that fake (social media)
> news
> >>>> influenced the 2016 presidential election outcome?
> >>>>
> >>>> Thanks,
> >>>> Yosem
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>
> >>>
> >>>
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> >
> >
> > <---------------------------------------------------->
> > Jeanine Finn, PhD
> > Researcher
> > School of Information
> > University of Texas at Austin
> > jefinn at utexas.edu <mailto:jefinn at utexas.edu>
> > http://jeaninefinn.me <http://jeaninefinn.me/>
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> --
> Josh Braun, Ph.D.
> Assistant Professor of Journalism Studies
> Journalism Department
> University of Massachusetts Amherst
>
> @josh_braun
> Skype: wideaperture
> http://wideaperture.net/
> new book: http://yalebooks.com/book/9780300197501/program-brought-you
>
> "Maybe the only gift is a chance to inquire, to know nothing for certain.
> An inheritance of wonder and nothing more."
> William Least Heat-Moon
>
>
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-- 
Sarah Oates
Professor and Senior Scholar
Philip Merrill College of Journalism
University of Maryland
College Park, MD 20457
Email: soates at umd.edu
Phone: 301 405 4510