Question:
Discuss about the Digital Culture for American Democracy.
The changes in the media technologies are influencing the democratic scenario in the nations. American democracy was also affected by such repeat buffets, which are increasing due to the drastic changes in the media technologies. In the scenario of 19th century, the improved presses and cheap newsprint gave the permission for expanding the reaches in a dramatic way. Allcott and Gentzkow (2017) revealed that that the computational propaganda is spreading the misinformation about the public policy and politics over the social media platform. The automation and propaganda together create the impacts on the public opinion, elections, debates, and political crises. The collected data on this subject ensured that majority of the hashtags and junk news is about politics that led up to the 2016 Presidential Election in America. The study would consider the American election campaign, which is dramatically influenced by such misinformation and fake news. The characteristics of the campaigns would be discussed I this case study analysis. The circulation of the fake news through social media would be described in this study.
The emergence of the new media technologies, such as social media, has been dominating the market of radio and television. Most of the news is circulated to the people since they spend more time of these social media platforms (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). It is noticed that the social media platform like Facebook has completely different structures than the media technologies that appeared previously. In 2016, the election campaign of America was highly affected by the false stories – “fake news”. It is reported that almost 62% of US adults regularly visit the news stories on social media. Giglietto et al., (2016) alleged that Facebook is the most demanding platform where the fake stories are circulated among the people who believe in these stories. The evidence also highlights that majority of the fake news stories tended to favor Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton (Pickard, 2017). Considering the news, many of the people suggested that the Donald Trump won such election due to the circulation of the fake news over the social media, which was not a right decision. In the article Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election, the conceptual ideas about the fake news and influence on the election campaign are widely discussed (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). The quantitative data is collected among 1200 person after the election was completed. The database indicates that almost 156 election-related news stories were completely falsified and these stories were circulated through the fast-checking websites three months prior to the election.
The article indicates that social media platform is the main source of such falsified political information and news. People believe in the social media news more than the information derived from the traditional outlets (Gaughan, 2016). The database obtained from the survey process determines that almost 115 pro-Trump fake stories were circulated over Facebook. These stories were posted more than 30 million times whereas almost 41 pro-Clinton fake stories were posted more than 7.6 million times. It is considered that such propaganda has influenced the voting patterns in the 2016 election (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017).
According to Graber and Dunaway (2017), ‘fake news’ is often conceptualized as the distorted signals that are completely different to the real scenario or truth. It is notable that fake news arises in equilibrium since it is quite cheaper to circulate. The consumers of the news do not seek the accuracy at the initial stage since they are more likely enjoying the partisan news. It is true that consumers utilize such fake news for some benefits, but it also leads the consumers to infer the true state of world. It becomes much difficult to choose the right candidate for the election. In usual cases, the consumers end up selecting the wrong candidate that affects the condition of the nation (Drache et al., 2015). ‘Fake News’ is defined as the intentionally and verifiably falsified and could lead the readers towards wrong direction. The study is specifically highlighting the influence of the fake news that affected the presidential election of US in 2016. The fabricated news against Hillary Clinton created the negative impact on the US citizens. The headline of denverguradian.com was “FBI agent suspected in Hillary email leaks found dead in apparent murder-suicide” (Nelson, 2017). Many other articles originated on some of the satirical websites that misled the consumers to undertake the impulsive decisions. For instance, it is reported by the website wtoe5news.com that Donald Trump was endorsed by Pope Francis for the presidential candidacy in 2016 (Rochlin & Rochlin, 2017). Majority of the fantasy news appears on this website, but the consumers prefer such news much considerably.
The theoretical and empirical background is used in this context to frame the debate with proper clearance. The study focuses on the discussion based on the economics of fake news. The model of media markets is a theory-based concept, which helps in gathering the firms and selling the signals of a true state of the world to consumers (Johnson, 2017). These consumers are benefitted from inferring the truth. The preferences of the consumers to believe in fake news and take the impulsive decision ultimately lead the world towards the horrified scenario (Mihailidis & Viotty, 2017). The development of the quantitative data indicates that people share such falsified information about the public policies and political figures over the social platforms that create the clouds of misunderstanding. The widespread of the fake news thus can affect the conscience of the normal citizen. There are many of the conspiracy theories of political news have circulated over the last half-century. The clear data of these stories is presented below:
Graph 1: Effects of Historical Partisan Conspiracy Theory
(Source: Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017)
The above graph shows that the circulation of the fake news has been corrupting the power of conscience since quite a long time. The polling data was compiled by the American Enterprise Institute. For example, some of the citizen believed that Franklin Roosevelt had the knowledge about the incident prior to the Pearl Harbor Bombing case occurred. It was also rumored that Lyndon Johnson was involved in the assassination of Kennedy (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). The information even went against Barack Obama by stating that he was born in another country and the US government took active participation in the 9/11 bombings.
The circulation of the fake news is fueled by many of the reasons that help these stories to gain more importance eventually. In this current age, enter to the media platform is not much easy. On the other hand, people can easily monetize web content through the different advertising platform (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). It is a considerable fact that the media outlets are much concerned about the reputational value. Social media, on the other hand, is the dissemination of fake news that has experienced the significant rise in last few decades. The calculation highlights that in the year of 2016, the number of active users of Facebook reached up to 1.8 billion (Tambini, Anstead & Magalhães, 2017). The lack of trust and confidence can also be another most specific reason for the rise of fake stories through social media. The declining trust in the mainstream media is another consequence of the fake news, which gains more traction. It is noted that some of the social media sites like Facebook post the stories that are intentionally fabricated and misleading the readers. These sites even select the names of the original and legitimate organizations. Therefore, it is quite effective for the readers to consume these stories and evaluate their judgment accordingly (Lilleker, 2017). Similarly, in case of American Presidential election, the citizens were highly influenced by the falsified information shared against both Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton.
Conclusion
The obtained ideas from the study depicts that the social media is the current source of originating the falsified news against the public policies and political figures. The presentation of the fabricated news creates the recognizable impact on the consumers’ minds. In the scenario of 19th century, the improved presses and cheap newsprint gave the permission for expanding the reaches in a dramatic way. The consumers of the news do not seek the accuracy at the initial stage since they are more likely enjoying the partisan news. It is true that consumers utilize such fake news for some benefits, but it also leads the consumers to infer the true state of world. It becomes much difficult to choose the right candidate for the election. Social media, on the other hand, is the dissemination of fake news that has experienced the significant rise in last few decades. The calculation highlights that in the year of 2016, the number of active users of Facebook reached up to 1.8 billion. Majority of the fantasy news appears on this website, but the consumers prefer such news much considerably.
References
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election. Journal Of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211–236.
Drache, D., Fletcher, F., Das, B., & Neyazi, T. A. (2015). Report on Media Activism and Other Manias: How the English Mass Circulation Indian Press Framed the 2014 Election Campaign.
Gaughan, A. J. (2016). Illiberal Democracy: The Toxic Mix of Fake News, Hyperpolarization, and Partisan Election Administration. Duke J. Const. L. & Pub. Pol’y, 12, 57.
Giglietto, F., Iannelli, L., Rossi, L., & Valeriani, A. (2016). Fakes, News and the Election: A New Taxonomy for the Study of Misleading Information within the Hybrid Media System.
Graber, D. A., & Dunaway, J. (2017). Mass media and American politics. Cq Press.
Johnson, D. (2017). Activating activism: Facebook trending topics, media franchises, and industry disruption. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 34(2), 148-157.
Lilleker, D. (2017). Evidence to the Culture, Media and Sport Committee’Fake news’ inquiry presented by the Faculty for Media & Communication, Bournemouth University.
Mihailidis, P., & Viotty, S. (2017). Spreadable Spectacle in Digital Culture: Civic Expression, Fake News, and the Role of Media Literacies in “Post-Fact” Society. American Behavioral Scientist, 0002764217701217.
Nelson, J. (2017). Fake News, Fake Problem? An Analysis of the Fake News Audience in the Lead Up to the 2016 Presidential Election.
Pickard, V. (2017). Media Failures in the Age of Trump. The Political Economy of Communication, 4(2).
Rochlin, N., & Rochlin, N. (2017). Fake news: belief in post-truth. Library Hi Tech, 35(3), 386-392.
Tambini, D., Anstead, N., & Magalhães, J. C. (2017). Is the Conservative Party deliberately distributing fake news in attack ads on Facebook?. Media Policy Blog.
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