UNDERSTANDING ‘FAKE NEWS’: A BIBLIOGRAPHIC PERSPECTIVE

Abstract

False information that appears similar to trustworthy media content, or what is commonly referred to as ‘fake news’, is pervasive in both traditional and digital strategic communication channels. This paper presents a comprehensive bibliographic analysis of published academic articles related to ‘fake news’ and the related concepts of truthiness, post-factuality, and deepfakes. Using the Web of Science database and VOSViewer software, papers published on these topics were extracted and analysed to identify and visualise key trends, influential authors, and journals focusing on these topics. Articles in our dataset tend to cite authors, papers, and journals that are also within the dataset, suggesting that the conversation surrounding ‘fake news’ is still relatively centralised. Based on our findings, this paper develops a conceptual ‘fake news’ framework—derived from variations of the intention to deceive and/or harm—classifying ‘fake news’ into four subtypes: mis-information, dis-information, mal-information, and non-information. We conclude that most existing studies of ‘fake news’ investigate mis-information and dis-information, thus we suggest further study of mal-information and non-information. This paper helps scholars, practitioners, and global policy makers who wish to understand the current state of the academic conversation related to ‘fake news’, and to determine important areas for further research.