Fake News in Social Kurdish Media in Kurdistan Region

Abstract

Fake news becomes a phenomenon in the Kurdish social media. The easiness of use and the political and social environmental crisis of northern Kurdistan besides non-professional dealing by a number of journalists worsen the situation. Despite the fact that fake news does not stemmed from the modern technology of information and the advent of using media for psychology and propaganda war but, the easiness of accessing social media makes the online platforms to be the main mediums of disseminating fake news.
 The openness of northern Kurdistan towards new communication technology and the semi-freedom of journalistic working and partisan activities help this part of the world to be a spot area for spreading fake news phenomenon; which became an interesting topic for many scholars around the world mainly after the presidential elections of United States of America in 2016.
 In this exploratory study, focus group interview used for collecting data and thematic analysis approach adopted for analysing it. Results show that spreading fake news through the Kurdish social media becomes a prevailing phenomenon. Various political and economy purposes can be identified behind disseminating fake news. Adding to increasing activity of variety of pages and accounts created with this respect through different names.
 Although of prevailing of the phenomena, a number of procedures can be taken in order to put a line for common of the phenomena including covering fake news through creating parasite account and pages and detecting the source of such piece of information.