GEORGETOWN LAW TECHNOLOGY REVIEW WHY DO PEOPLE SHARE FAKE NEWS? A SOCIOTECHNICAL MODEL OF MEDIA EFFECTS Alice E. Marwick * CITE AS: 2 GEO. L. TECH. REV. 474 (2018) INTRODUCTION In 2017, Peter Daou launched “Verrit,” a partisan news site targeted to Democratic voters disappointed with the results of the 2016 election. The site consists of single quotations, facts, and statistics, each formatted as a graphic and labeled with a unique “identification code” to indicate authenticity and accuracy. For instance, a Verrit article titled “Where Is the Outcry Over Republicans Sabotaging Health Care for Children?” leads with a Pearl S. Buck quote, “The test of a civilization is in the way that it cares for its helpless members,” helpfully verified with the number 0443076, and followed by a stack of infographics, tweets, and news articles supporting the title’s proposition. The site explains: Each “verrit” is marked with an identification code and contextualized with supporting material. The purpose of the code is to confirm that the content originated at Verrit.com. To authenticate a verrit, enter the code in the search bar. No result = fake. * Assistant Professor, Department of Communication, University of North Carolina Faculty Advisor, Media Manipulation Initiative, Data & Society Research Institute. I am indebted to the members of the Media Manipulation Initiative at the Data & Society Research Institute, whose research and insight has been fundamental to my own thinking on these issues: danah boyd, Becca Lewis, Francesca Tripodi, Caroline Jack, Robyn Kaplan, Matt Goerzen, and Joan Donovan. I would also like to thank Joshua Tucker, Alex Leavitt, Adam Berinsky, Stacy Blasiola, and many others for conversations about this paper at Social Science Foo Camp (2018), Reece Peck for sharing his manuscript-in- progress about Fox News, the students of Julie Cohen’s Technology Law and Policy Colloquium at Georgetown Law for their memos on an earlier draft of this paper, and Francesca Tripodi for sending me an early draft of her paper “Alternative News, Alternative Facts: Deconstructing the Realities of ‘Fake News’” (2018) which uses ethnographic methods to take the type of active audience approach to “fake news” for which I am advocating in this paper.
WHY DO PEOPLE SHARE FAKE NEWS? A SOCIOTECHNICAL MODEL OF MEDIA EFFECTS
Jul 05, 2023
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