In Facebook We Trust?

According to a September article from TIME Magazine, the increasingly common term “fake news” will soon be added to the dictionary with the following definition:

“Fake News: False news stories, often of a sensational nature, created to be widely shared online for the purpose of generating ad revenue via web traffic or discrediting a public figure, political movement, company, etc”

“Fake news” gains much of its power from social media sites like Facebook. The information we post, coupled with the sophisticated technology that tracks our internet browsing habits, allows ad makers to target their content toward specific demographics.

During the 2016 American Presidential election, we saw how “fake news” could alter public perceptions of science, politics, and public figures. A study examining the sharing of “fake news stories” leading up to the 2016 US election found 14% of Americans cited social media as their “most important” news source.

Oxford English Dictionary’s 2016 word of the year, post-truth, evokes thoughts of an Orwellian dystopia. Leaving many people wondering how we proceed in political discourse when the truth now seems to carry such little weight. (For further discussion of post-truth politics look hereàhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sCRI-K4VWGc)

For me, the rise of post-truth (or as Stephen Colbert would call it: ‘Truthiness’) and fake news raises two relevant questions: how does the relationship between social media and fake news affect science literacy, and what can science communicators do about it?

If ever I am tempted to conclude that all hope is lost and real science is set to die a slow and painful death, I look to media such as the YouTube shows Crash Course and SciShow. I also look to more traditional media, like the late Oliver Sacks’ literary works. A key element in the OED’s definition of ‘post-truth’ is emotion. I think that we can use the public’s ‘weakness’ for emotion to our advantage; connecting to readers at an emotional level can help bridge the gap between experts and the public.

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References

Nisbet, E. C., Cooper, K. E., & Garrett, R. K. (2015). The partisan brain: How dissonant science messages lead conservatives and liberals to (dis) trust science. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658(1), 36–66.

#Posttruth #FakeNews #Facebook #socialpsychology #Psychology