Role of Media in (Re)producing Ideology and Impact of Fake News on Social Media

Philosophy
What is ideology and what is the role of the media in (re)producing ideology?
How do we understand the impact of “fake news” today in the era of social media?

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BA1001 Annotation Template (Assessment Task 1)
Topic:
Social Media and Fake News
Journal
J-Stor
References
Gentzkow, M., & Allcott, H. (2017). Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election. The
Journal of Economic Perspectives, 31(2), 211-235
Fake news is a major propaganda tool used online today. Evidenced in the 2016 US national
elections social media was a major tool of accusations and counter attacks. An online survey
on the effectiveness of web browsing data as a news source reveals that 14% of Americans
rely on the importance of social media as news. The viral effect of information presented
online makes it an appropriate platform for spreading information to millions of people

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(Flaxman, Goel, & Rao, 2016). This research discovered that Trump maximised on
ideologically segregated social media by sharing fake news 24 million times more than
Clinton’s number of shares.
The Journal of Economic Perspective (JEP) bridges the gap between press media and
academic journals. It is a synthesis of economic research in public policy, ideological
thoughts, and economic issues. Hunt Allcot works as Associate Professor of Economics in the
New York University in New York. Gentzkow is an Economics Professor at Stanford
University in California. These are research associates with the National Bureau of Economic
Research in Massachusetts, Cambridge. The paper presents figures of graphs and charts
showing fake news trends over the years unveiling the Gentzkow & Allcott (2017) model of
Fake news. The research uses more than 70 references in the post 2000 years.
The source contains crucial researched information from secondary data on fake news. It
contains strong evidence for a multidisciplinary approach to fake news. It also highlights the
effectiveness of fake news in campaign strategies while pointing at its importance. From the
findings, it is clear that the consumption of fake news is high and its demand poses questions
of credibility and consumer protection from misconceptions.
https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/fakenews.pdf

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Additional References
Flaxman, S., Goel, S., & Rao, J. M. (2016). Filter bubbles, echo chambers, and online news
consumption. Public Opinion Quarterly, 80 (S1), 298-320.
Word count: 276