article of effect of fake news in 150 words
Answers
Fake news or junk news is a type of yellow journalism or propaganda that consists of deliberate disinformation or hoaxes spread via traditional print and broadcast news media or online social media.[1][2] The term is also at times used to cast doubt upon legitimate news from an opposing political standpoint, a tactic known as the lying press.[3][4] The false information is often caused by reporters paying sources for stories, an unethical practice called checkbook journalism. The news is then often reverberated as misinformation in social media, but occasionally finds its way to the mainstream media as well.[5]
Fake news is written and published usually with the intent to mislead in order to damage an agency, entity, or person, and/or gain financially or politically,[6][7][8] often using sensationalist, dishonest, or outright fabricated headlines to increase readership. Similarly, clickbait stories and headlines earn advertising revenue from this activity.[6]
The relevance of fake news has increased in post-truth politics. For media outlets, the ability to attract viewers to their websites is necessary to generate online advertising revenue. If publishing a story with false content attracts users, this benefits advertisers and improves ratings. Easy access to online advertisement revenue, increased political polarization, and the popularity of social media, primarily the Facebook News Feed,[1] have all been implicated in the spread of fake news,[6][9] which competes with legitimate news stories. Hostile government actors have also been implicated in generating and propagating fake news, particularly during elections.[10]
Fake news undermines serious media coverage and makes it more difficult for journalists to cover significant news stories.[11] An analysis by BuzzFeed found that the top 20 fake news stories about the 2016 U.S. presidential election received more engagement on Facebook than the top 20 election stories from 19 major media outlets.[12] Anonymously-hosted fake news websites[1] lacking known publishers have also been criticized, because they make it difficult to prosecute sources of fake news for libel.[13]
During and after his presidential campaign and election, Donald Trump popularized the term "fake news" when he used it to describe the negative press coverage of himself.[14][15] In part as a result of Trump's use of the term, the term has come under increasing criticism, and in October 2018 the British government decided that it will no longer use the term because it is "a poorly-defined and misleading term that conflates a variety of false information, from genuine error through to foreign interference in democratic processes."[16]
The Powerful Effect of “Fake News”
Introduction
From the beginning days of the printing press to the always evolving internet of present day, the media has greatly evolved and changed over the years. No one can possibly overstate the influential power of the new media of television on the rest of the industry. Television continues to influence the media, which recently an era of comedic television shows that specialize in providing “fake news” has captivated. The groundbreaking The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report have successfully attracted the youth demographic and have become the new era’s leading political news source. By parodying news companies and satirizing the government, “fake news”
But with the events of the Vietnam War and Watergate scandal, reporters switched to “watchdog journalism” as they scrutinized nearly everything politicians said (Sabato 19). Finally, this brings the old media up to the present movement of “junkyard dog journalism” where almost anything goes (Sabato 19).
New Media
The old media’s dominance and the old media’s traditional role of public service died out with the realization of the looming economic considerations involving the profitability of the news in the 1980’s. The new media, originally with nonpolitical origins, developed political roles because of potential profitability covering the news (Davis 7). Although some of the new media does use old media technologies, that common usage is as close as they get. The new media—which includes talk radio, television, electronic town meetings, television news magazines, MTV, print and electronic tabloids, and computer networks—separates itself from the old media by “[enhancing] the public’s ability to become actors, rather than merely spectators, in the realm of medial politics” (Davis 7). The new media does not share the “sense of obligation to cover governmental affairs,” but rather functions as a source of entertainment that includes political issues