Marta Perez Fake news

Marta Perez
University of Florida
College of Journalism

Stuart Rankin, F.M. 2017, March. Vector of Fake News.

Hello everyone my name is Marta Perez I’m a third year student at the University of Florida majoring in telecommunications. And today, in this blogpost, will be talking about fake news and its meaning. Fake news is a relevant topic in our society these days. We create tv shows that report news that are not verified and that modify the information and facts just for entertainment. One of this tv shows that the article “Introduction to the Special issue in fake news: Definitions and approaches” mentions, is the Daily Show. Tom Mould, the author of this article describes the show as one of the most popular fake news shows on television. But is fake news something new in our world? This article discusses the similarities between fake news, folk news, legends and literature, which have been going on since the late nineteenth century.
The actual issue with this topic comes when people believe these fake news and then no one knows what’s real or what’s not. In this article there are a couple of examples of how dangerous defaming fake news can be. The article mentions examples  like when Dow Jones had dropped temporarily because of a false report that a bomb had exploded in the white house.  

The article talks about the 2017 Annual Conference of the American Folklore society. In this conference there was a presentation with multiple panels about this topic, this had never happened before in this conference, but because of the importance of this topic in the actuality, they felt like we needed a conversation about it. The article blames this on Donald Trump and this fake news era that his presidency has created. 

The Folklore society is a culture that mainly encompasses their traditions. These include oral traditions like tales, proverbs and jokes. Folklorists should be part of the discussion because Traditional journal publication timelines usually take years from submission to publication. 

The article focuses on fake news and its definition. According to the dictionary, the word "fake news" is so obvious that doesn't need a definition. "It is a combination of two words, both well known, which when used in combination there's no need for explanation" according to the Merriam-Webster dictionary. They suggest to look for each word independently and the mixed the meaning for a better explanation. Communication scholars have felt the necessity of helping with a definition for further study. And this is what they're definition is: "We define fake news to be news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false, and could mislead readers" In this definition they mention intentionally delivering fake news, the problem today is that sometimes fake news are not intentional. If the source is not clear, the information to the next source will arrive differently. 

Linking journalism and folklore, Russel Frank talks about the process of the transmission of fake news. He says that as digital folklore, fakes news are created in a non-professional context that uses news to parody, satirize issues and people in the news. 

The article talks about how before there was Donald trump there was the Daily Show, one of the most popular fake news tv shows. And how Folklorists are not only skilled to identify fake news, but because sometimes recognition and truth are constantly negotiated by performance.

One of the other issues of fake news for folklorists is how to verify the information to make sure it's true. This doesn't just affect us as readers and listeners but also the scholars trying to verify the information. Folklorists have thought for years that we should not be biased about the information we received and the criteria with what we try to verify the information. Meaning that just because we don't like the information we shouldn't be biased about it and not believe it. Some people in the article talk about how we should grasp the information that we get as reliable until there's prove of the opposite. But nowadays that seems impossible, feels like everything we hear is fake because of the abundant news that we read that are not true. 

Folklore has always had very worrying phobias because of how traditional group they are. The have been characterized as phobic to racism, sexist, homophobia and xenophobia. What makes the act of verifying news harder because of bias. 

This article summarizes in a pretty clear way what fake news are, how dangerous are, and how it's more than ever an actual issue. Fake news is classified as an issue because it can have real consequences as I explained before. We believe news, online news, news on tv or even news in magazines. We read surveys in magazines that talk about what the divorce rate percentage or when do people meet their first love. But how can we verify that information. How can we prevent people from acting and reacting to fake news when they shouldn't because nothing is real. It's a very delicate topic and hard to approach, and hopefully folklores and scholars can find a way to end fake news. Hopefully they can help educate us on how to react to news and how to verify them.