An article entitled “Americans Believe They Can Detect Fake News. Studies Show They Can’t” on the Forbes website explains a new study: a study from the Pew Research Center revealed that 64% of people believe that fake news is creating confusion and issues in today’s society. Although 39% of people feel “very confident” in recognizing fake news with a following 45% feeling “somewhat confident,” a Buzzfeed poll discovered that a stunning 75% of Americans had believed fake news about the election to be accurate. The rise of President Trump’s tweets, accusing news outlets of being “fake news,” has brought the issue further under our noses (whether it was there before or not). It cannot be denied that this issue is one that threatens the knowledge of Americans and the information they are fed as the media expands. The issue was taken to University of Illinois at Chicago to see if the students on campus had a concern on the topic and whether they would be able to distinguish real from fake news.
What exactly comes to one’s mind when the phrase “fake news” is spoken? Elizabeth Rodriguez, a sophomore who majors in Integrated Health Studies and identifies as a liberal, stated that the phrase makes her think of news that is “produced or maybe even exaggerated by media as a way to distract from something else.” Three other students interviewed explained along the same thought of it being inaccurate news that is missing parts or the whole truth (although the other three did not mention the factor of possibly for the purpose of distracting society). When asked of their concern on the topic relative to the recent tweets from Trump, the first interviewee explained that her concern for fake news has not changed since Trump’s tweets and she feels that illegitimate news stories were always present but that the president’s announcement of it “does make you think what other things could be going on without using that ‘fake’ news as a facade.” Melissa Solis, a freshman majoring in Communications who identified as a Democrat, disclosed that her interest has increased but she has always been somewhat concerned over the topic. Similar to Solis, Jackie Diaz, a sophomore majoring in the Teaching of History who identifies with the Democratic Party, admitted that her concern for this topic has increased since the president’s mention of it. Afi Djisseglo, a senior who majors in the Teaching of English and identified as an Independent party, expressed that with the phrase “fake news,” Donald Trump, George Orwell, and the United States came to her mind. She hinted at the idea of the American media in general becoming controlled and untrustworthy, like that of the dystopian world created by the author Orwell. She goes on to say how since Trump’s tweets she “has not thought about news but more so how pathetic American politics [and media] has become.”
When asked where she gets her news from, Rodriguez answered that she gets most from mainstream news outlets and admittedly, a lot from social media. Meanwhile, Diaz specified that her news comes from the television, mostly Telemundo and Fox, and that she “sometimes [does her] own research.” Solis gets her news mostly from CNN and The New York Times. Djisseglo revealed that she gets her news mostly from Twitter and Tumblr because “it occurs in real times and [appears] faster than news outlets like CNN.” Her response gives insight to the option of social media as a better news form due to the increase of citizen journalism; some Americans feel that these sites are more trustworthy than ones they feel are controlled by bigger industries.
As stated before, Buzzfeed found that a great 75% of Americans failed in identifying a fake story during the elections last year. Three of the interviewees voice that they are not surprised by the large number of people who failed at distinguishing real from fake; Diaz even suggested that “ignorance is an effect” of this large number of misled people. Solis is the only one to confessed that she would be “a little surprised” because she “likes to think that Americans are a little smarter than that.” When asked to review two articles from different news sites, all three were confident in their answers of which article was legit or not while Djisseglo was not completely sure about her final answers; all three switched the legit and illegitimate articles except for Diaz who thought both were real news. Surprisingly, the result of the four students interviewed revealed that they were a part of the 75% of Americans who could not tell the real news from the fake one. What is fascinating about their results is that when told the truth about the two articles, they all asked for proof of why the fake one was fake (but not of why the real one was real). The students read the first few sentences or paragraph but must have completely ignored or skimmed through the middle of the fake news that had written within its body that it was clearly a fake article and the website itself is satire and falsely reports. This up brings a question of whether “fake news” and its concern has more to do with news outlets or with individuals in society.
A link to the two articles used in this research are provided below. See if you can tell which is a legitimate news story and which is a satire:
http://abcnews.com.co/obama-signs-executive-order-banning-sale-of-assault-weapons/
A Words Shaker 