The Information Apocalypse 1

The Information Apocalypse

Vincent Kageyama

ASU ENG 102

Professor Kardell
 The Information Apocalypse 2

During the 2016 presidential election, the term “fake news” was used frequently, it was

even referenced by presidential candidate Donald Trump (Habgood-Coote, J, 2018). For the

purpose of this paper, the term “fake news” will be defined as any form of information or news

that is false or predicated off of inaccurate information. According to authors Jang and Kim,

“Recent Pew research suggests that 62% of US citizens obtains news from social media” (Jang,

& Kim, 2018). The ever-growing popularity of social media warrants both celebration and

caution, it gives the ability for anyone to create a profile and voice their opinions and ideas, and

this new open public forum gives way to new ideas and free expression for all. However, this

unfiltered constant stream of opinions from everyone demands caution as it allows for the spread

of information that has not been checked or verified. In one article by author Carlson, he

references a fake story about Hilary Clinton that was published during the 2016 election that

suggested that she was untrustworthy and was playing dirty, this video was viewed 567,000

times (Carlson, 2018). This was just one example of fake news, where a shocking and flashy

headline drew people’s attention to a fabricated story or faulty information. “With so many

potential voters reading and sharing misinformation, these stories may well have had an outsized

impact on the election outcome. In an environment filled with inaccurate information, the

importance of critical thinking skills is more apparent than ever” (Batchelor, 2017). Faulty

information that is fed to a large audience can impact their ability to analyze and cause distrust in

media, which is a huge concern in our country as a democracy requires citizens to be informed,

however with distrust and misconceptions in general this becomes far more difficult. “Fake

news” and misinformation influences people’s opinions, affects people’s trust in media, and the

public’s inability to distinguish credible and accurate sources.

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Works Cited

Balmas, M. (2014). When Fake News Becomes Real: Combined Exposure to Multiple News
Sources and Political Attitudes of Inefficacy, Alienation, and Cynicism. Communication
Research, 41(3), 430-454.

This article discusses the correlation of exposure to fake news and hard journalism and the
effects this has on the members of the study. This data was collected during the 2006 Israeli
election campaign. This article argues that fake news is actually derived out of hard news, in
order to make it appear more believable and influence the credibility of the article. Something
interesting that could be useful in expanding my idea of fake news is that the author addresses
late night comedy shows as political satire especially with relation to their portrayal of
politicians. The source also analyzes political alienation, a feeling of powerlessness and apathy
due to the belief that they are unable to create social change, and political cynicism, which the
article argues that fake news influences. It talks about how during political campaigns, fake ads
will be run to attack another candidates character or to help inflate and elevate one’s personality.

http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0093650212453600

Batchelor, O. (2017). Getting out the truth: The role of libraries in the fight against fake
news. Reference Services Review, 45(2), 143-148.

This short paper discusses the role of the librarian in an era where public distrust of the media is
growing. During the 2016 presidential election misinformation and lies ran rampant on social
media and with the popularity of social media, the rampant false information could have had an
impact on the election. The essay argues that fake news and misinformation is harmful to
democracy itself, as democracy requires an informed public and with all the fallacies and
misinformation out there it is becoming increasingly difficult for the public to distinguish the
truth from fiction. Batchelor also argues that fake news actually undermines facts and
manipulates public opinion through creating skepticism. The majority of K-12 and college
students lack the ability to find reliable information and this is where the role of the librarian
comes in, where they have the ability to teach good researching skills and inform the public
about the different sources of information available for them. The paper finishes by talking about
different databases or methods that people can use in order to navigate today’s world of
information.

https://www-emeraldinsight-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/full/10.1108/RSR-03-2017-0006

Carlson, M. (2018). Fake news as an informational moral panic: The symbolic deviancy of social
media during the 2016 US presidential election. Information, Communication & Society, 1-15.

Carlson introduces the paper with discussion of the 2016 presidential election where he talks
about how fake news ran rampant of Facebook. There were articles based on no facts that
generated mass amount of attention and clicks. The paper also discusses moral panics where a
societal change becomes defined as a threat to society and an issue that must be dealt with. The
paper goes on to discuss how there is a fear of texting destroying people’s abilities to write and
 The Information Apocalypse 4

therefore analyze written text. This talks about the media being the epicenter of information and
how in an ideal democracy, the ideal citizen should go out and consume information and become
better informed to make more informed decisions and therefore better the collective democracy.
The issue them becomes that with all the misinformation out there it becomes much more
difficult to decipher the fact from fiction.

https://www-tandfonline-
com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/full/10.1080/1369118X.2018.1505934?scroll=top&needAccess=tr
ue

De Keersmaecker, & Roets. (2017). ‘Fake news’: Incorrect, but hard to correct. The role of
cognitive ability on the impact of false information on social impressions. Intelligence, 65, 107-
110.

The experiment within this article inquired as to how people adjusted their judgement after
learning that previously known information was actually false. The article also goes on to
mention how while “fake news” and the spreading of misinformation for personal gain has
always been around, but with people’s access to social media and their ability to disseminate
information true or false, it has never been easier to spread fake news. The authors argue that
cognitive ability may have a large effect on people’s ability to readjust after learning that
previously known information was actually incorrect. They concluded that those with a lower
cognitive ability were not as successful and did not change their previously known notions as
much as those with higher cognitive abilities. An experiment was also carried out with regards to
a person’s attitude towards another when they were told that previous knowledge was actually a
lie, all members of the experiment were able to reevaluate their attitudes and feelings towards the
person. This is a scientific article with lots of evidence and data to support their conclusions.

https://ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/S0160289617301617/1-s2.0-S0160289617301617-
main.pdf?_tid=542a8d27-82a3-4115-b471-
e7efeb6048fe&acdnat=1535647012_f584d38297a1a1a4e947612b32d4d54a

Habgood-Coote, J. (2018). Stop talking about fake news! Inquiry, 1-33.

This article argues that the terms ‘fake news’ and ‘post-truth’ are irrelevant in academia and they
need to stop being used as both of these terms do not have stable public meaning. The author
focuses on ideas about the issues with these terms saying that they are unnecessary, do not have a
universal meaning to the general public, and are actually a form of political propaganda meant to
promote an ideology. The term fake news lacks descriptive content and the meaning has deeper
connotations than the words actually describe. Referencing Donald Trump and the explosion of
academic papers discussing fake news during the 2016 election, the author refers to specific
examples of times when lies were used to promote a side of the election. Habgood-Coote argues
that the term fake news is a generalized term now that refers to any information that is bad or
unreliable and that this is misleading. The article goes on to discuss the linguistic implications of
using this term. This article finishes with labeling the term fake news as a form of propaganda as
it is using linguistics to influence the public mindset and influence ideas.
 The Information Apocalypse 5

https://www-tandfonline-
com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/full/10.1080/0020174X.2018.1508363?scroll=top&needAccess=tr
ue

Jang, & Kim. (2018). Third person effects of fake news: Fake news regulation and media literacy
interventions. Computers in Human Behavior, 80, 295-302.

This article discusses the idea of third person perception, where the members of this particular
study believed fake news was more likely to affect others’ than themselves. Those with third
person perception also were more likely to think that the solution to the fake news problem is to
increase the literacy of the population and were less likely to vote for the media being held more
accountable. The article talks about the origins of the term fake news and the renewed interest in
the spreading of false information, where during the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump
brought up this idea of the media slandering him. Democrats claim that the fake news influenced
the outcome of the election and while there is no empirical evidence for fake news affecting the
public, the article discusses the public opinion that fake news can undermine credibility of
information and may cause confusion and lead to problems.

https://ac-els-cdn-com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/S0747563217306726/1-s2.0-S0747563217306726-
main.pdf?_tid=1d0c16ac-b967-48f5-99c5-
cf43764a8547&acdnat=1535476298_6070f39f4079b7e1854634b021f9c171

Marchi, R. (2012). With Facebook, Blogs, and Fake News, Teens Reject Journalistic
“Objectivity”. Journal of Communication Inquiry, 36(3), 246-262.

This is a study on how teenagers view news and media and their preferred methods of receiving
information. There has been a generational shift where the younger generation does not read
newspapers daily and they are less likely to view anything related to politics. As a result of the
decrease in teen exposure to news, they use adults as media filters because they believe the
adults consume a substantial amount of information and trust them to summarize important
events. Those who watch late night shows that satirize current events such as the Colbert Show,
The Daily Show, actually scored higher on campaign knowledge tests than those who read the
newspaper. Young people actually prefer their news to be delivered in a form of entertainment
rather than a string of facts and reports, but this article propose the question of whether or not
they have a grasp of media literacy.

http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0196859912458700

Mihailidis, P., Viotty, S., & Payne, J. (2017). Spreadable Spectacle in Digital Culture: Civic
Expression, Fake News, and the Role of Media Literacies in “Post-Fact” Society. American
Behavioral Scientist, 61(4), 441-454.

This article also examines the 2016 presidential election and the idea that the reason for a decline
in viewership throughout the election was due to an emergence of spectacle. The idea here is that
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Donald Trump did not focus as much on the issues and was more of a spectacle. In this article a
spectacle is defined as, “vulgar, full of aesthetic, glitzy, and increasingly commercialized” (442).
The issue with this, the article argues, is that with the ever-growing presence of social media,
these spectacles are becoming more prevalent even in important political arenas. It also talks
about the media willingly engaging in cultural iconography and their perpetuation of partisan and
polarizing information. The article goes on to talk about a possible solution in media literacy
which it says is linked to an increased ability to analyze, think critically, and decipher the
overwhelming amount of media texts and this in turn helps their ability to debate about their
contemporary events and information.

http://journals.sagepub.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/doi/pdf/10.1177/0002764217701217