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Fake News in British Politics

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Fake News in British Politics Fake News in British Politics Name: Chris Ruiter Stud. No.: 10463054 Date: 19-07-2018 Research project: European Politics & Policy in Times of Crisis Supervisor: Rosa Sanchez Salgado Second Reader: Dimitris Bouris Institution: University of Amsterdam Thesis is written for the degree of Master of Science (MSc) In political Science: Political Theory (Political Science) 1 Acknowledgements Over the course of my academic career, there have been many people who helped me get to where I am today. First I would like to thank Rosa Sanchez Salgado for supervising this thesis and helping me get to the finish line. The second person I would like to thank Dimitris Bouris, for taking the time to be the second reader of this thesis. Furthermore, I would like to thank all the teachers who helped me gain the knowledge I have today. And last but not least, I would like to thank my friends and family who convinced me to continue working on this project and hopefully bring it to a good end. 2 Table of Content Acknowledgements ................................................................................................................................. 2 List of Abbreviations .............................................................................................................................. 5 Part 1: Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 6 1.2: Relevance ......................................................................................................................................... 7 1.3 Structure of thesis ............................................................................................................................. 7 Part 2: Literature review ......................................................................................................................... 8 2.1: Misinformation and deliberative democracy ................................................................................... 8 2.2: The fake news research agenda ..................................................................................................... 10 2.3 Misinformation, beliefs, politician’s incentives .............................................................................. 13 2.4 Fake news & Misinformation as discourse ..................................................................................... 15 Part 3: theoretical framework & sub questions ..................................................................................... 18 3.1 assumptions and conceptualizations used ....................................................................................... 18 3.2 Research questions .......................................................................................................................... 19 3.3 Methods........................................................................................................................................... 20 Part 4: Fake news over the years ........................................................................................................... 23 4.1 Fake News in the Media ................................................................................................................. 23 4.2 Quantitative use of fake news in the House of Commons .............................................................. 26 4.3 Chapter conclusion. ......................................................................................................................... 27 Part 5: Fake news discourses in the House of Commons ...................................................................... 28 5.1 Debates, codes and discourses ........................................................................................................ 28 5.2 Fake news as debate strategy .......................................................................................................... 30 5.3 Fake news and normative values .................................................................................................... 32 5.4 Fake news as a narrative ................................................................................................................. 33 5.5Fake news & frames ......................................................................................................................... 33 5.6 Chapter Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 36 Part 6: The case of the 350 million pounds a week for the NHS .......................................................... 37 6.1 Case background ............................................................................................................................. 37 6.2 Connection to Theory ..................................................................................................................... 38 6.3 Strategic action in Britain ............................................................................................................... 39 6.4 Chapter conclusion .......................................................................................................................... 39 Part 7: Conclusion ................................................................................................................................. 40 Bibliography ......................................................................................................................................... 43 Appendix ............................................................................................................................................... 54 3 List of Tables. ....................................................................................................................................... 54 List of Figures ....................................................................................................................................... 55 Analyzed Debates ................................................................................................................................. 57 4 List of Abbreviations EU: European Union HOC: House of Commons MP: Member of Parliament UK: United Kingdom US: United States of America 5 Part 1: Introduction For many, the year 2016 will enter the history books as the beginning of the ‘post-truth’ era of politics. (Drezner, 2016). First on June the 23rd, the people in the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union. In doing so, many opponents of the Brexit challenged the claims made during the campaign of the referendum for their factual content (ibid). In the same year, on November the 8th, the US voted Donald Trump into office. Trump, a controversial figure, has a track record of openly claiming that the former US president Obama wasn’t born in America and believing that the birth certificate Obama provided was False (New York Times, 2016). Apart from being a ‘birther’, Trump routinely criticizes news and media outlets, who are critical of him, for spreading misinformation by calling them ‘fake news’. Even going as far as to hand out ‘fake news awards’ with the winners being CNN, the New York Times, ABC news, Washington post, Newsweek and Time respectively (New York Times, 2018). A new phenomenon during the 2016 US presidential elections is that 60% of adults got their primary source of news from the internet and social media. However, the stories circulated through social media seemed to favor Donald Trump over the other candidate, Hillary Clinton (Allcot & Gentzkow, 2017: 211-212). Many believe that the Russian government interfered in the Brexit referendum and US presidential elections, by creating fake news articles and posting them through social media (Persily, 2017: 70-71). Increasingly, fake news is getting its meaning mixed up and is becoming part of a discourse with its meaning not only referring to news that is fake or misinformation, but also in the way Donald Trump uses fake news. For instance, Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the Labour party in Britain, used the words fake news to accuse the BBC of altering a photo of him, by making him wear a hat that would make him look more Russian. However, the hat wasn’t photoshopped on (BBC.co.uk, 2018). The convolution of the meaning of fake news and its spread, either by Russians or the press in general garners the attention for more research into fake news. In Britain, many of the prerequisites of what happened in America can be found here. Politicians like Corbyn use the words fake news in a discourse (BBC.co.uk, 2018). Russia is said to have interfered in the Brexit vote, making misinformation a highly salient issue for debate (the Times, 2018). Furthermore, Britain has a large tradition of tabloid journalism, in which newspapers use sensational headlines and reporting to gather a greater reader base (Esser, 1999: 294). These tabloids also have their own political preferences, which in turn shapes what news they 6 emphasize, and what news they play down (Schudson, 1989: 263). These events are bound to have an effect on the deliberation in British politics. Furthermore, groups within the UK will have their own preferences, uses and solutions for fake news. These translate into different discourses that renegotiate what the meaning of the problem is. Thereby constructing a discourse (Torfing, 1999: 86). As the meaning of fake news changes, the role of fake news in the deliberation changes as well. This gives
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