Fake News In The United States

Tristen Samson
4W
Mrs. Slous
13 March 2017
“Fake News” Research Paper This year has been a very large example of “fake news” in the United States. “Fake News” is a big example of 2016 because of the United States most recent presidential election. Fake news can be defined as false information or propaganda published under the guise of being authentic news. News stations and social media do this to mislead consumers of the content and spread misinformation. Fake news is most commonly seen in politics because of propaganda, and wanting the information that they have spread to be true, and mislead people into voting for their candidate. This can be seen a lot with the Donald Trump campaign when he saw CNN as a fake news station whenever CNN

“Whenever you turn on a news station, visit a news website, or check in on a journalist or media personality on Twitter or Facebook, there is an excellent chance you will be exposed to fake news. It is rapidly becoming an accepted part of the way the American media are run” (Payne). People in America are accepting fake news as valuable information just because it sounds legitimate. It honestly may be hard to break through this issue, because it will only continue to get worse. We are just accepting it as a society. Social media such as Facebook shows you what is trending by who has liked, commented, or shared. Usually in most cases it has a link or an article attached with its headline, which then leads to people to the actual site. Such as “____ has died from an overdose” or “See the latest on why Kim Kardashian is getting divorced”, whenever none of that is happening. These stories do catch people’s attention which then leads to sharing and then so called “news” to spread. Most people who are using social media is the younger population. According to a source even younger kids are catching on to the “fake news” that has been being spread. “CNN anchor Jake Tapper says his 7-year-son has adapted President Trump's "fake news" quip” (Hensch). It is becoming easier to notice what “fake news” is because it seems noticeable to most people what would be true or not true. In a study that was done “Although 44% of tweens and teens in a recent survey said they can tell the difference between fake news stories and real ones, more than 30% who said they shared a news story online during the past six months admitted that they didn't get it exactly right” (Wallace). Although those teens did not fully understand what the article is saying, it still led them to share fake news. Fake news will always be an issue for our society until people learn how to detect