What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories
‘Fake news’ has been a topic of controversy during and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Much of the scholarship on it to date has focused on the ‘fakeness’ of fake news, illuminating the kinds of deception involved and the motivations of those who deceive. This study looks at the ‘news...
| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Other Authors: | |
| Format: | Journal Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2021
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| Online Access: | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146452 |
| _version_ | 1826128931466510336 |
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| author | Tandoc, Edson C. Thomas, Ryan J. Bishop, Lauren |
| author2 | Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information |
| author_facet | Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Tandoc, Edson C. Thomas, Ryan J. Bishop, Lauren |
| author_sort | Tandoc, Edson C. |
| collection | NTU |
| description | ‘Fake news’ has been a topic of controversy during and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Much of the scholarship on it to date has focused on the ‘fakeness’ of fake news, illuminating the kinds of deception involved and the motivations of those who deceive. This study looks at the ‘newsness’ of fake news by examining the extent to which it imitates the characteristics and conventions of traditional journalism. Through a content analysis of 886 fake news articles, we find that in terms of news values, topic, and formats, articles published by fake news sites look very much like traditional—and real—news. Most of their articles included the news values of timeliness, negativity, and prominence; were about government and politics; and were written in an inverted pyramid format. However, one point of departure is in terms of objectivity, operationalized as the absence of the author’s personal opinion. The analysis found that the majority of articles analyzed included the opinion of their author or authors. |
| first_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:32:54Z |
| format | Journal Article |
| id | ntu-10356/146452 |
| institution | Nanyang Technological University |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-10-01T07:32:54Z |
| publishDate | 2021 |
| record_format | dspace |
| spelling | ntu-10356/1464522023-03-05T15:58:49Z What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories Tandoc, Edson C. Thomas, Ryan J. Bishop, Lauren Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information Social sciences::Mass media Content Analysis Disinformation ‘Fake news’ has been a topic of controversy during and following the 2016 U.S. presidential election. Much of the scholarship on it to date has focused on the ‘fakeness’ of fake news, illuminating the kinds of deception involved and the motivations of those who deceive. This study looks at the ‘newsness’ of fake news by examining the extent to which it imitates the characteristics and conventions of traditional journalism. Through a content analysis of 886 fake news articles, we find that in terms of news values, topic, and formats, articles published by fake news sites look very much like traditional—and real—news. Most of their articles included the news values of timeliness, negativity, and prominence; were about government and politics; and were written in an inverted pyramid format. However, one point of departure is in terms of objectivity, operationalized as the absence of the author’s personal opinion. The analysis found that the majority of articles analyzed included the opinion of their author or authors. Ministry of Education (MOE) Published version The first author’s work on this project was also supported by a Tier 1 Academic Grant from the Singapore Ministry of Education. 2021-02-17T07:43:57Z 2021-02-17T07:43:57Z 2021 Journal Article Tandoc, E. C., Thomas, R. J., & Bishop, L. (2021). What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories. Media and Communication, 9(1), 110-119. doi:10.17645/mac.v9i1.3331 2183-2439 https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146452 10.17645/mac.v9i1.3331 1 9 110 119 en Media and Communication © 2021 Edson C. Tandoc Jr., Ryan J. Thomas, Lauren Bishop. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits any use, distribution, and reproduction of the work without further permission provided the original author(s) and source are credited. application/pdf |
| spellingShingle | Social sciences::Mass media Content Analysis Disinformation Tandoc, Edson C. Thomas, Ryan J. Bishop, Lauren What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title | What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title_full | What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title_fullStr | What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title_full_unstemmed | What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title_short | What is (fake) news? Analyzing news values (and more) in fake stories |
| title_sort | what is fake news analyzing news values and more in fake stories |
| topic | Social sciences::Mass media Content Analysis Disinformation |
| url | https://hdl.handle.net/10356/146452 |
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