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COMM 10 - Dr. Johnson: What is Fake News

This guide complements Dr. Johnson's COMM 10 classes and their assignments

"Fake News" - definition

Fake News 

"Fake news is made-up stuff, masterfully manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are easily spread online to large audiences willing to believe the fictions and spread the word."

--Politifact

Other Useful Terms for this discussion:

Biased news: A way of reporting on a factual news story that is designed to sway a reader toward a specific conclusion. This differs from fake news because the underlying facts are true but may be presented selectively or misleadingly to encourage the reader to think a particular way.

Clickbait: A term used to describe articles, either real or fake, that have attention-grabbing headlines and intentionally inflammatory content, designed to entice readers to click on the article and share the content. Those "Sponsored" ads and windows on legitimate news sites.

Confirmation bias: A tendency of people to seek out and trust sources that affirm a belief they already hold and to distrust sources that contradict their existing beliefs.

 

DeepFakes

From Bloomberg News: a brief introduction to the new challenge of DeepFakes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLoI9hAX9dw