Fake News in Digital Cultures: Technology, Populism and Digital Misinformation

Description

Fake News in Digital Cultures presents a new approach to understanding disinformation and misinformation in contemporary digital communication, arguing that fake news is not an alien phenomenon undertaken by bad actors, but a logical outcome of contemporary digital and popular culture, conceptual changes meaning and truth, and shifts in the social practice of trust, attitude and creativity. Looking not to the problems of the present era but towards the continuing development of a future digital media ecology, the authors explore the emergence of practices of deliberate disinformation. This includes the circulation of misleading content or misinformation, the development of new technological applications such as the deepfake, and how they intersect with conspiracy theories, populism, global crises, popular disenfranchisement, and new practices of regulating misleading content and promoting new media and digital literacies. Half Title Page Title Page Copyright Page Dedication Contents Acknowledgements Chapter One: Introduction: Digital Cultures and Fake News What is Fake News? Cultural Circulation of Fake News: Disinformation, Misinformation and Risk Fake News as Cultural Emergence and Cultural Crisis About this Book Chapter Two: What is Fake News? Defining Truth Introduction Truth and Post-truth Towards a Typology of Fake News The Interplay of Fake News Types: The 2021 Capitol Riots Chapter Three: The Cultural Emergence of Fake News I: Digital Cultures, Interactive Practices and Artificial Feeds Introduction Locating Fake News: Emergences within Digital Culture The Digital Culture of Interactivity, Co-creativity and Democracy The Dissolution of Gate-keeping and Agenda Setting Believability of Fake News: Online Echo Chambers in an Era of Tribalism Chapter Four: The Cultural Emergence of Fake News II: Postmodernism, Sensationalism and the Hyperreal Introduction Content Production and Motivation in a Postmodern, Post-truth and Late Capitalist Era Postmodern Culture, Sensationalism and Emotional Responses: Tabloidism as Fake News’ Model Form The Unrecognisability of Satire, Parody and Pastiche Conclusion Chapter Five: The Visual in an Era of Hyperreality and Disinformation: The Deepfake Video Introduction The Deepfake as New Issue for Fake News Deepfake’s Rise: An Interactive Postmodern Cultural Technology Deepfake as a Social Problem: Four Key Issues Conclusion Chapter Six: Fake News and Conspiracy Theories Introduction Conspiracy Theories and their Cultural Role The Networking of Conspiracy Theories The Postmodern Hermeneutic of Suspicion Fake News and the QAnon Conspiracy Conclusion: The Ethics of Reporting Conspiracy Chapter Seven: Marginalising the Marginalised: Fake News as a Tool of Populist Power Introduction Fake News and Populism’s Reinforcement of Inequitable Power Divisions Racial Stereotypes and Fake News Fake News and Black Lives Matter Fake News and Xenophobia in the COVID-19 Pandemic Conclusion Chapter Eight: Audiences, Trust and Polarisation in a Post-truth Media Ecology Introduction Conceptualising and Measuring Trust The ‘Crisis of Trust’: Audiences in a Post-truth Media Ecology Brexit Megxit Conclusion Chapter Nine: Remedying Disinformation: Communication Practice in a World of Fake News Introduction The Rise of Fact-checking Organisations and Agencies Informal Fact-checking Practices among Everyday Users The Continuing Role of Journalism The Regulatory Environment Platform Collaborations Digital Literacy and Media Pedagogies Conclusion Chapter Ten: Ethical Practices, Digital Citizenship and Communication Futures Introduction Beyond Regulation Fake News’ Violence Responding in Ethics to Fake News Conclusion References Index