Abstract
The misleading and propagandistic tendencies in American news reporting have been a part of public discussion from its earliest days as a republic (Innis, 2007; Sheppard, 2007). “Fake news” is hardly new (McKernon, 1925), and the term has been applied to a variety of distinct phenomenon ranging from satire to news, which one may find disagreeable (Jankowski, 2018; Tandoc et al., 2018). However, this problem has become increasingly acute in recent years with the Macquarie Dictionary declaring “fake news” the word of the year in 2016 (Lavoipierre, 2017). The international recognition of fake news as a problem (Pomerantsev and Weiss, 2014; Applebaum and Lucas, 2016) has led to a number of initiatives to mitigate perceived causes, with varying levels of success (Flanagin and Metzger, 2014; Horne and Adali, 2017; Sample et al., 2018). The inability to create a holistic solution continues to stymie researchers and vested parties. A significant contributor to the problem is the interdisciplinary nature of digital deception. While technology enables the rapid and wide dissemination of digitally deceptive data, the design and consumption of data rely on a mixture of psychology, sociology, political science, economics, linguistics, marketing, and fine arts. The authors for this effort discuss deception’s history, both old and new, from an interdisciplinary viewpoint and then proceed to discuss how various disciplines contribute to aiding in the detection and countering of fake news narratives. A discussion of various fake news types (printed, staged events, altered photographs, and deep fakes) ensues with the various technologies being used to identify these; the shortcomings of those technologies and finally the insights offered by the other disciplines can be incorporated to improve outcomes. A three-point evaluation model that focuses on contextual data evaluation, pattern spread, and archival analysis of both the author and publication archives is introduced. While the model put forth cannot determine fact from fiction, the ability to measure distance from fact across various domains provides a starting point for evaluating the veracity of a new story.
Highlights
Fake news has a long history in America (McKernon, 1925; Innis, 2007), becoming internationally recognized as a problem in 2016, the year it was declared word of the year by Macquarie Dictionary (Lavoipierre, 2017)
This focus owes its legacy to studies of voters and voter behavior, which have emphasized the role of campaigns and media outlets in transmitting information to voters who make up their minds (Downs, 1957; Ferejohn, 1990)
Szfranski (1997) argued that information warfare attacks would be enacted against both information systems and belief systems and that leaders and their supporting non-combatants would both be targeted
Summary
Fake news has a long history in America (McKernon, 1925; Innis, 2007), becoming internationally recognized as a problem in 2016, the year it was declared word of the year by Macquarie Dictionary (Lavoipierre, 2017). The more traditional media, government, and military refer to target audiences in a different, less precise manner, based on broad narratives and a focus on broad beliefs and groupings with an assumption that these descriptions will lead to specific group behaviors It appears from these differences and the rapid evolution of these technologies that disinformation campaigns have a distinct advantage in the modern information environment. The alternative appears to be the delivery of grand narratives and themes supported by “trusted” agencies that rely on their self-perception of impartiality, which is quickly a target for fake news agencies and those who are likely to benefit from distrust of alternatives to the fake news narratives It remains to be seen if the employment of fact checking, controlled narratives, and traditional information operations approaches is sufficient for the information environment of the future, but the results to date are not positive. These concepts will be discussed in more detail throughout this article
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