Fake News/
Misinformation

Erika Lombart, Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium
erika.lombart@uclouvain.be

The issue of fake news has become a critical topic in contemporary media studies, encompassing a variety of forms of misinformation. According to the Urban Dictionary, fake news refers to content disseminated by news organisations that contains dishonesty, often to promote a political agenda. Fake news can manifest itself in several categories, such as outright lies, omission of critical information, manipulation of emotional appeals, and selective outrage, all of which are intended to mislead or manipulate the audience.

Scholars have emphasised the growing importance of language in the realm of fake news. As noted by Doutreix and Barbe, traditional media actors use normative tools to identify reliable sources, highlighting the need for professional practices in the face of rising misinformation. According to Oustinoff, the political context of fake news is particularly relevant as leaders such as Trump, Bolsonaro, Orban, and Salvini use language not only to communicate but also to manipulate narratives, positioning misinformation as 'fake news' to obscure the truth. This marks a shift in which language becomes a tool of deception, rather than a transparent communicator.

Social media platforms also play a significant role in the spread of fake news, especially in political contexts. According to Allcott and Gentzkow, fake news supporting Donald Trump was widely shared on Facebook during the 2016 US election, influencing public opinion. Furthermore, selective belief in fake news aligns with political preferences, especially on ideologically segregated social media networks.

Finally, machine learning models have been used to detect fake news, but they face challenges such as limited accuracy and generalisation, claim Singh et al These difficulties highlight the complexity of the issue, as combating fake news requires not only technological solutions, but also linguistic and communicative strategies.

Keywords: language manipulation, political agenda, social medias

Related Entries: Fact, Fact-checking, Objectivity, Truth

References:
Allcott, H., & Gentzkow, M. (2017). Social media and fake news in the 2016 election. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-236. https://doi.org/10.1257/jep.31.2.211
Doutreix, M.-N., & Barbe, L. (2019). Légitimer et disqualifier: Les fake news saisies comme opportunité de normalisation du champ journalistique. Études de communication, 53(2), 49-66. https://doi.org/10.4000/edc.9242
Oustinoff, M. (2019). Le langage est l’instrument du malentendu. Hermès, La Revue, 84(2), 52-56. https://doi.org/10.3917/herm.084.0052
Singh, J., Liu, F., Xu, H., Ng, B. C., & Zhang, W. (2024). LingML: Linguistic-informed machine learning for enhanced fake news detection. arXiv preprint arXiv:2405.04165.