Fake News: Social Media and Election Results - University Assignment

This assignment examines the phenomenon of fake news and its impact on social media and election results. The assignment explores the reasons behind the sharing of false information, particularly among older generations, who may lack the ability to verify the authenticity of news articles. It also discusses the role of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter in the spread of misinformation and considers whether these platforms should censor such content. The assignment references academic sources to support its arguments, focusing on the effects of fake news on political polarization and the challenges of ensuring news veracity in the digital age. The assignment is a response to the increasing concern about the influence of false news websites on elections and public discourse.

Running head: FAKE NEWS
Fake News
Name of Student:
Name of the University:
Author note:

1FAKE NEWS
Fake news is a category of news that is also called yellow journalism or a form of
propaganda that consists information with deliberate intention to misinform the readers using
mediums such as traditional print, online broadcasted news channels or on social media
platforms (Allcott and Matthew, 2016). This sensationlization done by these media outlets
attracts advertisements and improves ratings. For social media platforms such as the
Facebook News Feed enables users to easily access to the news posts which in turn, increases
political polarization.
It has been found that the older generations are usually the ones who are most likely
to not think about the authenticity of news and are more likely to share fake news on
Facebook. This is a worrying occurrence as the older generation is increasingly becoming the
majority viewers of Facebook’s news articles (Lazer et al., 2018). The main reason why these
people forward these fake news is because they lack the knowledge of obtaining hindsight or
the ability to confirm the information given in a news article.

2FAKE NEWS
References:
Allcott, Hunt, and Matthew Gentzkow. "Social media and fake news in the 2016
election." Journal of economic perspectives31.2 (2017): 211-36.
Lazer, David MJ, et al. "The science of fake news." Science359.6380 (2018): 1094-1096.