Political Communication: Analyzing the Impact of Fake News Issue

This essay explores the significant impact of fake news on political communication, analyzing how it influences public opinion and behavior. It discusses the role of elected political leaders in disseminating fake news through various channels, including mass media and social websites, to promote their political ideologies. The essay examines fake news as both a genre and a political tool, highlighting its potential to mislead citizens and undermine trust in credible sources. It delves into propaganda theory, misinformation theory, rumor theory, and conspiracy theories to provide a comprehensive understanding of the mechanisms and motivations behind the spread of fake news in political contexts. The analysis emphasizes the need for critical evaluation of information and regulatory measures to combat the negative effects of fake news on society and democratic processes. This document is available on Desklib, a platform offering a wealth of academic resources for students.

RUNNING HEAD: AN ISSUE IN POLITICAL COMMUNICATION
An issue in political communication
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Introduction:
Political communication is the mutual process related to the communication of
information between the citizen, news media, and political persons. Political communication
is the process through which the information spread from the official governing institutions to
the citizen of a country. In recent times, fake news has a deep impact on society as a part of
political communication. Elected political leaders deliver fake news through political
communication to the people of the country. Those political leaders utilize fake news to
influence people. These leaders try to spread their political ideology to suppress other
political ideologies. Fake news has two aspects, which are fake news as a genre and fake
news as level. To understand the role of fake news a person needs to have the Understanding
of the propaganda theory, the misinformation theory, the rumor theory and the conspiracy
theory.
In recent times, political communication is important. Through this communication
man elected to rule the citizen. Now media not only inform the important news to the citizen
but also help to create public opinion. Every act related to political communication developed
to inform and motivate the people of that country by the governing parties, media, and
interest groups. In this paper, the impact of fake news on political communication is
analyzed. This impact fake news on political communication is analyzed through a thoughtful
discussion about political communication, the propaganda theory, the misinformation theory,
the rumor theory, and the conspiracy theories of fake news, critical analysis of the impact of
fake news on political communication.

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Discussions:
Political communication is the exchange of thoughts, information, between citizens of
the country, elected governing institutes. Through this political communication, official
governing institutions get public opinion (McNair 2017). In recent time, machine learning,
natural language processing, and network analysis play an important role to understand
political communication. There are three subcategories of political communication, which is
production, contents and the impact of information. To understand political communication,
it is important to analyze the production of political communication, contents of political
communication and the impact of political communication.
Political communication has three functions, which are production, contents and the
impact of information. The elected governing institute uses political communication to
influence the citizen of the country. Elected political leaders use political communication to
create the impression of the ruling political party. These political leaders use political
communication to create a good impression for the ruling party for their better future. Social
media, social websites, and media are used to create a better impression of the ruling party
(Stieglitz and Dang-Xuan2013). By using it political communication politicians and media,
influence the behaviour, thoughts, and decision, choice.
Even today, politicians and media define citizen of a country from the ideological
perspective. Those political leaders create a positive political impression through political
communication in favour of the ruling party (Pfetsch and Esser 2013). The elected governing
institute through political communication influences public opinion and behaviour. Since
2016, the impact of fake news has been discussing by the social researcher. Based on the
research of political science and communication it can be said that the fake news creates a
deep impact in favour of the elected governing institute (Foulkes2013). Fake news is not only

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an isolated planned event. To fulfill the desire, the elected politicians spread this type of fake
news (Brewer, Young and Morreale2013).
News can be two types, which are original news based on real facts and fake news. In
recent time fake news is treated as original news and this situation create an obstacle between
original facts and beliefs (Rubin et al. 2016). To influence the attitude and thought of the
public, the elected politicians share propagandistic information or fabricated news by using
political communication. These elected political persons try to hide that news which is
against their political agenda. People do not check the fake news with original facts most of
the time. As are of this, people changed their opinion about an issue. Those political leaders
use political communication to influence the common people because of this reason. It can be
said that those elected political leaders are successful to fulfill their purpose.
There are two aspects of fake news. When any news is deliberately created to provide
pseudo journalistic disinformation among the citizen of a country is known as fake news as a
genre. Fake news as the level is the political device, which tries to delegitimize news from
media. The main motive of spreading fake news has misled the citizen of the country to trust
the stories and get benefits from this belief (Spohr 2017).
Fake news maintains the journalistic format. This type of news contains false
information for the people. Fake news can contain false connections, manipulated content,
wrong context, misleading content. Fake news is either fake or it can be full of misleading
information to influence the thought of the citizen. A message provided by the elected
political person can be fake news even fake news has a fact (Corner 2017). The content of the
news can be fabricated or it can be partially false and paired with the appropriate information.
There is no appropriate procedure to judge the news. People should focus on the original fact
and after that, they can say whether the news is true or not.

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The fake news maintains the journalistic format. The journalistic format of fake news
contains a headline, discussion part. It is difficult for the common citizen of the country to
differentiate among the fake news and original news. The fake news, provided by the elected
political person, maintains the proper structure, professional standard. For the common
citizen of the country, it is difficult to differentiate between genuine news. They believe the
fake news is original. Their thought procedure is influenced by fake news. Influencing the
citizen by using false political communication is the aim of an elected political person. News
media, social media, fake sites, are being used for spreading false news (Reinemann 2014).
The main sources of fake news are social media and fake websites. Spreading fake
news is the reason for creating these fake websites (Tandoc, Lim and Ling 2018). These
websites are pseudo journalistic and stay for a short period. These websites do not try to
create a long time website. These websites aim to maximize the short time profit by spreading
fake news. These websites do not focus on quality. Several websites spread much fake news
to fulfill the political agenda of the elected political leader. It is difficult for people to judge
the fake news from the website. These short-term websites do not have any authenticity.
These websites become unavailable after spreading the fake news. People cannot crosscheck
the authenticity of the news.
The intention to deceive is one of the most important parts of fake news. Judging the
intention of journalistic sources is a difficult challenge for the future. There are several types
of fake news. To find the source of the news is difficult for the people. News can be fake or
misleading. The intention of spreading fake news has misled people (Esser and Pfetsch
2016).
The impact of fake news on political communication is needed to be analyzed.
Generally, fake news is provided by the ruling political persons to influence the citizen in

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favour of the political ideology (Pfetsch and Esser 2013). The concept of fake news is not
new. However, in recent times the impact of fake news as a part of political communication
has increased. To analyze fake news as a part of political communication Propaganda theory,
misinformation theory, rumors theory, and conspiracy theories must be analyzed. Propaganda
theory is that specific political communication which is the intentional systematic attempt to
influence the people. Propaganda is the mode of communication, which is used to motivate
public opinion (Corner 2013). Propaganda creates a heavy impact on the group by hiding and
suppressing the truth. Propaganda is used to endorse one idea. Misinformation theory means
false or misleading information. To create political communication elected political leaders to
provide misinformation. Misinformation can create persistent misperceptions. It is difficult
for common people to correct the misperception. Because of this misperception, people do
not believe genuine news. In a democracy, political leaders spread misinformation to
manipulate the people. The elected political leaders want to create misperception in common
people. This misperception will help the elected political leader to rule them (Flynn, Nyhan
and Reifler 2017). According to the rumors theory, the political leader spreads the fake news
through political communication, which is not based on fact (Rahimi 2013). This rumor
cannot be supported by the original fact. However, common people believe this rumor and act
according to their beliefs. Rumor is characterized as a lack of authenticity and largely spread
social transmission. Rumors created from misinformation. The concept of rumor is present in
society for a long time. Before developing the concept of fake news, rumors were present.
The authenticity of the rumor is cannot be confirmed. Rumor plays an important role in
political communication (Rojecki and Meraz2016). Rumors can be misinformation or
disinformation or false, which was provided by the elected political leader for a specific
purpose. Conspiracy theory plays an important role in politics (Van Prooijen, Krouwel and
Pollet 2015). The elected political leaders to destroy all other sources of information promote

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conspiracy theory. Elected political leaders use the conspiracy theory when evidence of an
issue goes against the ruling political party (Oliver and Wood 2014). Conspiracy theory is
different from rumor. In conspiracy theory elected political person has to explain but in
Rumor theory, the elite political leaders do not give any explanation. Conspiracy theory helps
the citizen of a country to believe in a complex matter.
Political communication is mostly used for a purpose. Elected political leaders use
political communication for their benefit. Elected political leader is aware of the impact of
fake news and political communication. For them, it is an easy way to manipulate people. By
using fake news as political communication, these political leaders spread their political
ideology. Instead of focusing on the crucial issues, those influenced people focus on the other
less important issues. Elected political leaders can easily handle those influenced people for
their benefit. The impact of fake news on society is increasing now. As a way of political
communication, fake news is delivered through mass media and social websites (Jungherr
2015). The political leaders sponsor these social websites. For their benefit, these political
leaders sponsor these social websites. People get information from these social sites. They do
not compare the authenticity of the information. Fake news is being delivered as authentic
information. Influenced by information, people change their beliefs and thought. This is the
most dangerous impact of political communication.
Elected political persons used political communication to influence the common
people. Spreading fake news is a way of political communication. Political leaders spread this
fake news through media and social websites. After analyzing this issue, it can be said that
fake news is creating a negative impact on society and common people. Political leaders are
using the common people by spreading fake news (Balmas 2014). As a common citizen of
the country, this can be said that political communication is important. If political
communication has a good purpose then it is good. But most of the elected political persons

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utilize political communication to fulfill the wrong purpose. Political leaders spread the
rumor to influence the common citizen of the country. These political leaders use conspiracy
theory to solve any political issue. As a common citizen of the country, it can be said that
using political communication to fulfill the wrong purpose is not good or the society and the
country. There should be strict restrictions and regulatory plan to stop spreading fake news.
Because of this fake news, the incident related to violence happen. In a democratic country
which is not desirable (Esser and Pfetsch 2016). But the problem is the elected political
leaders are using political communication in the wrong way. These political authorities have
the power to stop spreading fake news as a part of political communication. It can be
expected from the political leader that in the future they will stop using political
communication to spread fake news.
Conclusion:
Therefore, in conclusion, it can be said that in recent time the use of fake news as a
way of political communication has been increasing continuously. In recent times, political
communication is used to fulfill the wrong purposes of the political leader. The use of fake
news to influence the common citizen of a country is a new way for the political leader. They
have the power to stop the wrong use of political communication. However, these elected
political leaders are not interested to stop using political communication to spread fake news.
This fake news is influencing the common people. Because of this fake news, the incident
related to violence is happening. But those political leaders, who are using political
communication as a way to spread their political ideology, are not interested to stop it. By
stopping this tendency, those political leaders will not get any benefits. That is the reason,
they are last interested to stop it. This tendency is not good for the future. The life of the
future generation will be affected by this tendency. For a better future, those elected political

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persons, who have the power to stop the wrong use of fake news, should stop this tendency
by creating strict laws and regulatory plans. For the better future it is important.

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