hailey mooney 02 — Transcript

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1. 0:00disinformation is a term that talks
2. 0:03about
3. 0:04intentionally false information that's
4. 0:07being spread
5. 0:08so this is a little bit different than
6. 0:10say misinformation
7. 0:12which is unintentionally false
8. 0:14information
9. 0:15so when you're talking about myths
10. 0:16versus dis information
11. 0:19you're talking about the intentionality
12. 0:21of the author
13. 0:22are they going to you know want to be
14. 0:24spreading this false information or when
15. 0:26they find out
16. 0:27that the information was false do they
17. 0:29make a good faith effort to correct it
18. 0:33miss and disinformation are really part
19. 0:35of a larger
20. 0:36ecosystem of junk
21. 0:39information information pollution what
22. 0:41would generally lump
23. 0:43under the heading these days of being
24. 0:45called fake news
25. 0:47so there are actually lots of different
26. 0:49topologies and definitions of fake news
27. 0:52out there
28. 0:53i'll share with you a little bit of my
29. 0:54take on it
30. 0:56now if you put aside um satire
31. 1:00um as a type of fake news which would be
32. 1:03like you know
33. 1:04the daily show or something like that or
34. 1:06weekend update on snl
35. 1:09um fake news definitions generally fall
36. 1:12into sort of
37. 1:13two categories which would be a
38. 1:15problematic content
39. 1:17or critique of mainstream media and i
40. 1:20like to think of this as fake news being
41. 1:22a deception
42. 1:24that is intended to influence for
43. 1:26someone else's game
44. 1:28um so this deception could be through
45. 1:30the false or misleading content an
46. 1:32article in itself or it can also be
47. 1:34a rhetorical device that someone uses
48. 1:37your fake news um
49. 1:40and there's a gain there um often it's a
50. 1:43financial gain and it might also be
51. 1:45paired with a socio-political
52. 1:47gain that someone's looking to have as
53. 1:49well so this would be
54. 1:51um generally you know thinking of
55. 1:53wanting you to vote for a particular
56. 1:55candidate
57. 1:56or um subscribe to a particular ideology
58. 2:01but it could also be at a smaller level
59. 2:03somebody just wants to
60. 2:06um you know get a laugh out of how
61. 2:08gullible
62. 2:09you are so i'm going to run through a
63. 2:12few
64. 2:13more specific examples of how
65. 2:16fake news sort of shakes out what it can
66. 2:18be
67. 2:20so if you're looking at fake news as
68. 2:22problematic content
69. 2:24with intent to sell something or make
70. 2:26money
71. 2:27this is like your traditional snake oil
72. 2:29salesman sort of thing
73. 2:32in the 2016 election we saw this with um
74. 2:36those fabulous news stories like pope
75. 2:39endorses
76. 2:40trump uh there were a number of of those
77. 2:43types of stories
78. 2:44pizzagate that kind of thing a lot of
79. 2:47these were really about exploiting
80. 2:50the business model of the internet
81. 2:53by which page views gets you advertising
82. 2:57dollars so they just wanted you to come
83. 2:58to their site get as many hits as they
84. 3:00could
85. 3:01so they could get as much advertising
86. 3:03revenue as they could it was really
87. 3:04about making money for a lot of people
88. 3:06who put out those types of stories
89. 3:10now another type of fake news is
90. 3:12problematic content
91. 3:13would be content that's sponsored and
92. 3:15orchestrated by an undisclosed
93. 3:17entity appearing in an otherwise
94. 3:20legitimate news source
95. 3:22um so one example of this
96. 3:25again back at the 2016 election that
97. 3:27sort of fits into this category
98. 3:30would be the like the russian propaganda
99. 3:33that we saw on social media
100. 3:35um where they would like pose as some
101. 3:38types of grassroots organization and try
102. 3:40and get you to come to a rally
103. 3:42and then also then have the other side
104. 3:45of the
105. 3:46um of the issue so they're trying to get
106. 3:48people to come out and and just be
107. 3:50um you know polarized they're trying to
108. 3:52promote that polarization
109. 3:54um so that's sort of like a turf grass
110. 3:56sort of movement thing
111. 3:58um you also see this in the more
112. 4:00mainstream media and this gets into fake
113. 4:02news says critique of mainstream media
114. 4:05when a news organization might run a
115. 4:07press release
116. 4:09as straight news without disclosing
117. 4:12the source of that information um that
118. 4:14it actually came from
119. 4:16a a lobbying group or a corporation or
120. 4:20something that they pulled that right
121. 4:22from the press release
122. 4:24so fake news then as a rhetorical device
123. 4:27would be a creation of narratives that
124. 4:29are designed to delegitimize and
125. 4:31annihilate opposition this is really
126. 4:33how we see trump use the term fake news
127. 4:36um
128. 4:37when he you know tells people that
129. 4:40they're fake news or that that
130. 4:41organization
131. 4:42is just fake news a more historical
132. 4:45example would be with mccarthyism
133. 4:47where the term communism became
134. 4:49synonymous with anti-americanism
135. 4:53so fake news can also be talking about
136. 4:55very ideological or partisan news
137. 4:58sources promoting
138. 5:00opinions over facts this might be
139. 5:02something like breitbart or alex jones
140. 5:05or even something like huffington post
141. 5:06on the left
142. 5:07but you also get here uh into fake news
143. 5:10as critique of mainstream media
144. 5:13where you have critiques of fox news or
145. 5:15msnbc
146. 5:17that they're catering to a very specific
147. 5:19ideological audience
148. 5:21and this takes me then into the very
149. 5:22general critique of mainstream media
150. 5:26as fake news that they really rely on
151. 5:29news reporting practices of selective
152. 5:31representation and framing
153. 5:33they reinforce elite narratives and
154. 5:35power structures
155. 5:37particularly through reliance for
156. 5:38example on official sources
157. 5:41um and keeping out more everyday voices
158. 5:44this is the critique that we hear on
159. 5:46both the right and the left
160. 5:48although lately we tend to think of it
161. 5:49as more critique from the right
162. 5:52when we hear people decrying the liberal
163. 5:54media
164. 5:55but there's actually that strong
165. 5:57tradition of critique on the left as
166. 5:59well
167. 6:00um for example if you look at edward
168. 6:03herrmann and no more
169. 6:04norma noam chomsky's a 1988 book on
170. 6:07manufacturing consent
171. 6:09and a recent update on that uh sort of
172. 6:11idea came from
173. 6:13matt tiabe with his 2019 book on hate
174. 6:16inc
175. 6:17which sort of marries uh the the
176. 6:19critique of manufacturing consent
177. 6:21uh with the shift that we've been seeing
178. 6:23to the more
179. 6:24partisan ideological news sources
180. 6:28so big ecosystem of uh
181. 6:31fake news junk information of which
182. 6:34disinformation
183. 6:35just one very specific type of
184. 6:39patently false information that we have
185. 6:41to look out for