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"Fact-Checking Wont Save Us From Fake News"
http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/fact-checking-wont-save-us-from-fake-news/I’m as distressed as any journalist is to watch fake news spread, even as available facts can disprove it. But if facts don’t matter, what does? ...
Step one is to consider that fake news may be a fight not over truth, but power, according to Mike Ananny, a media scholar at the University of Southern California. Fake news “is evidence of a social phenomenon at play — a struggle between [how] different people envision what kind of world that they want.”
Ideological fake news lands in the social media feeds of audiences who are already primed to believe whatever story confirms their worldview, ...
Stories such as Pizzagate aren’t meant to inform, but to seed doubt in institutions, distract and flood newsfeeds with conflicting and confusing information. And if fake news isn’t about facts, but about power, then independent fact-checking alone won’t fix it — particularly for readers who already distrust the organizations that are doing the fact-checking. ...
Refocusing coverage may help. According to Emily Thorson, a political scientist at Boston College, there is one area where people will change their minds when faced with the facts: policy, particularly when it isn’t perceived to be partisan. By covering policies rather than candidates’ antics, the press may be able to persuade with facts after all. “There is a tendency to blame voters, but it’s really hard to find policy information. It’s hard to figure out what the candidates’ policies would actually mean for your life ...
Step one is to consider that fake news may be a fight not over truth, but power, according to Mike Ananny, a media scholar at the University of Southern California. Fake news “is evidence of a social phenomenon at play — a struggle between [how] different people envision what kind of world that they want.”
Ideological fake news lands in the social media feeds of audiences who are already primed to believe whatever story confirms their worldview, ...
Stories such as Pizzagate aren’t meant to inform, but to seed doubt in institutions, distract and flood newsfeeds with conflicting and confusing information. And if fake news isn’t about facts, but about power, then independent fact-checking alone won’t fix it — particularly for readers who already distrust the organizations that are doing the fact-checking. ...
Refocusing coverage may help. According to Emily Thorson, a political scientist at Boston College, there is one area where people will change their minds when faced with the facts: policy, particularly when it isn’t perceived to be partisan. By covering policies rather than candidates’ antics, the press may be able to persuade with facts after all. “There is a tendency to blame voters, but it’s really hard to find policy information. It’s hard to figure out what the candidates’ policies would actually mean for your life ...
