SoylentNews is people
SoylentNews
A story in The Conversation may be of interest to Soylentils:
"Fake news" is the buzzword of 2017. Barely a day goes by without a headline about president Donald Trump lambasting media "bias", or the spread of "alternative facts".
Many articles on the subject suggest that social media sites should do more to educate the public about misinformation, or that readers should think more critically about the sources of news stories before sharing them. But there are fundamental problems with this. First, there isn't a clear definition of what "fake news" really is. And second, it overlooks important aspects of people's psychological makeup.
"Fake news" can be classified in a number of ways and represented as a series of concentric circles. First, in the centre of the concentric model, we have actual fake news. These are the stories that we commonly see shared on sites such as News Thump and The Onion. These satirical stories are written for comedic purposes and are put together to entertain.
Next, we have propaganda articles. Typically, these pieces do not actually contain any real news value. They may, for example, detail an individual's past behaviour and suggest that that it reflects something about their current intentions. Alternatively, these pieces may contain some kernel of truth, but this may be twisted in such a way that it totally misleads audiences and misrepresents a story's true news value.
These propaganda articles take numerous forms. The Huffington Post, for example, included a caveat about Donald Trump's alleged bigotry whenever mentioning him in a story before the US election last November, while British readers will likely recall the Daily Mail's much-maligned attacks on former Labour leader Ed Miliband's late father in 2013, calling him a "man who hated Britain".
Finally, and occupying the outermost ring of the model, there are the stories that are technically true, but reflect the subtle editorial biases of the organisation publishing them. This reporting is commonplace within the mainstream media, through selective storytelling and politically-driven editorials. Whether this is reflected in the left-wing bias of The Guardian or the right-wing approach of the Murdoch media empire, this practice is less malicious and more a political interpretation of events.
There once was a precise word for the term "fake news" is trying to describe. Oh yes, it's "propaganda."
(Score: 2) by fyngyrz on Thursday June 01 2017, @11:08PM
Fabricated can be the result of a source that fabricates. So having a source is no assurance that the information wasn't fabricated.
Fabrication is an invented idea with no corresponding truth in objective reality, regardless of its source.
Sourceless means you don't know the source. This can happen if you're simply not informed. There may (or may not) be truth behind the information.
Propaganda is material designed to sway opinion with untruth.
Manipulation is something the mind naturally does when taking in and regurgitating information. It takes great skill not to do much of it. Just picking what story to cover and what words to use is almost certain to be some strong form of manipulation, and some of that occurs at the publisher level (often driven by advertiser interests), some at the editor, some at the reporter, and some at the source. The usual question for the media is whether the consumer will appreciate the manipulation that is done. Because the media outlets are presently dependent upon that factor for survival.
The issue that's actually relevant to the truth seeker is: True or Not-True.
What you actually get... well, that's generally something of considerably less benefit.