Wednesday, April 5, 2017
Fake News
Donald Trump becoming the nations President has been the topic of conversation ever since he decided to run. No matter what political party you side with, you can agree this election has been one of most controversial and most talked about elections to date. But what about Trump gets people so riled up? Maybe it's his unfiltered thoughts or maybe even the fact that he stands tall and true to his beliefs. Trump is known by some Americans for being oppressive and very opinionated in nature. His supporters praise him and his enemies criticize with every move he makes. One thing that emerged during the Trump era was a term by the name of "fake news". Fake news, according to Google, is " a type of hoax or deliberate misinformation, be it via the traditional news media or via social media, with the intent to mislead in order to gain financially or politically." So what does that mean? Anything that gets posted into the mainstream media is fake news? Obviously not, but everything you read isn't true. This sounds way too familiar, like something we were taught in 5th grade, so why are we still being reminded about it? Ever since Trump took office he's been using this term to stray people away from the news sources that haven't been portraying the correct information. He takes to Twitter and exposes prominent news media outlets such as NBC News and The New York Times, calling them "fake news", suggesting that topics they write about aren't as factual as people should assume. Obviously Trump will have some bias considering these are predominantly left-wing opinions on his presidency but Trump does shed some light and awareness to this issue. With that being said, Trump has some firm views that he sticks to which makes him so controversial. With so many scandals that came out during his candidacy, it was hard to ignore the harsh things Trump said about some groups of people. Calling Mexicans rapists, criminals, and drug dealers was one instance. "Grab her by the p****" was another. So there is no doubt that Trump has a history of targeting a group of individuals and stereotyping them as a whole. One of the first things Trump did at the start of his presidency was an executive to protect the nation from foreign terrorist entry into the United States. This executive order was revised from a previous one, stating that it would suspend the entry of refugees from seven predominately Muslim countries for 120 days. The order also excludes Iraq from the list of suspended countries. Many news media outlets and people around the country were outraged by this order and gave it the name "Muslim Ban". If the executive order that President Trump enacted only suspends these people for 120 days, why is it called a ban? Also, Trump understands that the nations that are suspended are predominately Muslim, but not all citizens are Muslim, so why is everyone stereotyping these countries as such? This is one example of fake news that has stirred up a lot of commotion concerning Trump. Twisting up the words executive order has messed up the meaning of the order itself.
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It's interesting how you use the formal definition from Google as a way to understand this phenomenon. You suggest that "deliberate misinformation" is something that is a recent development, and you seem to imply that the election of Mr. Trump represents when it got started. In fact, I might suggest that "fake news" has been a proud and storied tradition in this country (and even around the world) since the very invention of mass media. Terms like "Yellow Journalism" got started during the newspaper wars between Hearst and Pulitzer in New York City around the turn of the 20th century. The famous slogan "Remember the Maine" became a rallying cry for Americans in support of the Spanish-American War - but history suggests that the destruction of that ship, which was because of an accident and not an attack, became the leading edge of a broad effort at manipulating public opinion regarding the war (which was supported, for economic reasons, by Hearst).
ReplyDeleteThe ascension of Trump to the presidency, and the seemingly unprecedented amount of "fake news" in the public arena might be more appropriately attributed to the rise of the Internet and the global communication network on platforms like Twitter. Raw, unfiltered communication - like on Twitter - could hardly be classified as any sort of serious, developed message. It is probably better understood as a sort of quick-impression sort of communication. The character limit prohibits too much depth or detail - which means that tweets will always be much more symbolically forceful than literally forceful.
This post does a bit of meandering around different areas. Mr. Trump's harshly critical language when he first announced his candidacy (when he called Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers) set a stage for, as you said, was perhaps the most unconventional campaign - and now, administration - in our nation's history.
Remember that the artifact for your analysis ought to be an example of the sort of propaganda designed to influence public opinion. Clearly, Mr. Trump represents a significant "change agent" to the world of politics. There are many potential avenues for your project. Please let me know how I can help.
I really didn’t know that the term fake news was around before Trump’s candidacy. I obviously knew getting credible sources was not the easiest thing to do back in these times because of the lack of technology, but I never knew it was something that was an issue. I like the point you brought up about Twitter. That’s a main reason why Trump is in this spotlight of public scrutiny. He takes his opinions to Twitter and blasts anyone that may post a “fake” article or story about him. This is a reason why the term fake news has made a comeback, because of his use of it when he talks about popular news platforms like The NY Times and CNN. But does he have enough to back it up? How convincing can you be with only 140 characters and a catchy hashtag? I do think this brings up curiosity it Americans today though. Having him tweet and bash a certain headline or topic has people searching for the real story, searching for what he’s talking about or maybe even questioning the media themselves. This causes a huge gap between the media and what the President of the United States, leading to confusion. Trump’s use of language has hurt him in the past, making him lose possible supporters because of the specific stereotypes he has assigned to certain groups of people, here and all over the world. I think this will be an important part in my analysis as well because of the nature of the order. It has donned the nickname “Muslim Ban” but why or how? Trump never called it that and the order never stated that that’s what it was. It seems that Trump has a connection with the use of stereotypical language and that’s why people have no problem using the term “Muslim Ban” to describe his order.
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