Fake News Ecology Ian Reilly 1 F for Fake: Propaganda! Hoaxing! Hacking! Partisanship! and Activism! in the Fake News Ecology Ian Reilly If we are not serious about facts and what’s true and outperformed real news), the practitioners and what’s not, if we can’t discriminate between serious Web sites that profited greatly from its circulation, arguments and propaganda, then we have problems. President Barack Obama (Nov. 18, 2016) the methods through which citizens could debunk or defuse false information, and the means through The leaks are real but the news is fake. which fake news would continue unabated well President Donald Trump (Feb. 16, 2017) beyond the din of the US election. The recent popular media debates surrounding Situating Fake News the ubiquity of fake news constitute but one moment in a much longer history of examining, documenting, and contextualizing the prolifera- In the wake of the 2016 US presidential elec- tion of false news and information. Based on even tion, a maelstrom of critical commentary has a cursory overview of scholarship on propaganda emerged on the unprecedented circulation of “fake (Ellul; Herman and Chomsky; Cunningham; Mir- news” stories in/across popular and mainstream rlees), pseudo-events (Boorstin; Davies; Kent, media (Albright; Dewey; Silverman & Singer- Harrison and Taylor), or more recent accounts of Vine; Taub; Tufekci). Expansive news coverage of the broad proliferation of fake news (Rampton the phenomenon emerged in large part due to a and Stauber; Farsetta and Price; Goodman and perceived flaw in the architecture of Facebook’s Goodman; Manjoo; Khaldarova and Pantti), the algorithmic gatekeeping practices; the social media above controversy is but a continuation of deeply giant, it would seem, had become a key distributor systemic patterns that bolster the transmission of of fake news by becoming the Web’s biggest traffic information of questionable integrity and value. referrer to fake news sites (Wong). Despite the The growing complexity of fake news production sustained attention aroused by the Facebook elec- and dissemination is further exacerbated by the tion controversy, media scrutiny was inherently wide range of actors currently cementing the form broad: reportage focused on the impacts of fake into a ubiquitous mode of public discourse—pro- news on the election (how false news accounts had pagandists, hoaxers, hackers, partisans, and Ian Reilly is an assistant professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Mount Saint Vincent University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The Journal of American Culture, 0:0 © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc 2 The Journal of American Culture Volume 0, Number 0 XXX activists. The twenty-first century era of fake Facebook quickly became a focal point in main- news is increasingly bolstered by economic, tech- stream media news coverage. The first wave of nological, social, and political factors, making it a reportage framed Facebook’s role in stark terms, highly adaptive cultural form that continues to positioning the company as “help[ing] spread elude regulation and reform. misinformation and fake news stories that influ- enced how the American electorate voted” (Isaac). Elsewhere, one of the most newsworthy themes The 2016 US Presidential to appear following Trump’s election involved a Election chorus of commenters citing Facebook as a major (if not the sole) proponent of Trump’s win.4 Beyond the pale of pundit commentary, even the Donald Trump’s election win in November reluctant boast of a highly successful fake news- 2016 was considered by many a shocking, contro- writer garnered considerable media attention. versial, and unexpected final result. Just as Hillary Paul Horner, the self-proclaimed fake news Clinton was poised to become the first American impresario, offered up this quotable headline: “I female president, the Trump team’s push in the think Donald Trump is in the White House final weeks of the campaign1 served to solidify his because of me” (qtd. in Dewey). For the likes of base and to catapult him to the nation’s highest Horner, the sheer ubiquity of fake news stories office (Winston). An expansive chorus of com- may have catapulted Trump’s bid in the final mentators readily dismissed his chances of win- weeks of the campaign by emboldening his base ning: The Washington Post asserted as early as to believe wildly inaccurate stories about his March 2016 that he would “(almost certainly) detractors or the likelihood of a Trump win. The never be elected president” (Sargent); The Nation, platform on which Horner gained the greatest Slate, The Observer, Politico, and countless other degree of notoriety, Facebook, facilitated the news outlets sought to reassure their readerships transmission of these stories. One such story, that a Trump win would not come to pass. The shared almost a million times and likely visible to Independent went so far as to as wager that it was tens of millions, claimed that Pope Francis (a mathematically impossible2 for Trump to win well-known refugee advocate) endorsed Trump (Cranston). Even the Australian Government was (Tufekci qtd. in Isaac). This story has relevance in blindsided by Trump’s election, with internal relation to other pre-election fake news. As Craig documents citing there were “no signs” he could Silverman reported, “20 top-performing false defeat Hillary Clinton; as a result, Malcolm Turn- election stories from hoax sites and hyperpartisan bull’s government was sorely unprepared to blogs generated 8,711,000 shares, reactions, and engage in policy discussions with the Trump comments on Facebook” (Silverman, “This Anal- Administration.3 Trump’s unlikely ascension ysis”) during the final three months of the cam- earned him Time’s “Person of the Year” magazine paign.5 Within the same time period, the twenty cover and the arguably unflattering title of “Presi- best-performing election stories from nineteen dent of the Divided States of America.” major news Web sites generated a total of Trump’s outsider, anti-establishment win 7,367,000 shares, reactions, and comments on would immediately warrant further inquiry and Facebook (Silverman, “This Analysis”). Thus, in debate to account for what many perceived to be the final months of the campaign, fake news sto- an anomalous outcome. The discourse surround- ries of various stripes were making the rounds on ing the fake news election controversy is instruc- Facebook, inspiring an impressive number of dis- tive because it reveals some of the key dynamics, cursive responses that cannot be easily dismissed. characteristics, and contradictions tied to the phe- Responding to the perceived magnitude of nomenon. The propagation of fake news stories Facebook’s role in bringing false news stories to across far-reaching and influential sites such as greater prominence, Mark Zuckerberg issued this Fake News Ecology Ian Reilly 3 statement in the days following the election: “Of deliberation and debate. Theorizing fake news as all the content on Facebook, more than 99% of participating in the muddying of traditional what people see is authentic. Only a very small news discourse affords another vantage point amount is fake news and hoaxes .... Overall, this from which to consider the actors, outcomes, makes it extremely unlikely hoaxes changed the and solutions to this problematic arm of demo- outcome of this election in one direction or the cratic discourse. other” (Zuckerberg). Seeing as 44% of Americans now get their news and information from Facebook (“News Use”), Zuckerberg is either Fake News as Propaganda remiss, slow, or unwilling to acknowledge both the scope and the severity of the problem. Dis- counting the very real threat false information Fake news represents information of various poses for everyday sense-making and democratic stripes that is presented as real but is patently governance, the proliferation of “biased informa- false, fabricated, or exaggerated to the point tion—misleading in nature, typically used to pro- where it no longer corresponds to reality; what mote or publicize a particular political cause or is more, this information operates in the point of view” (Lotan)—appears to have been express interests of deceiving or misleading a more prevalent than fake news during the targeted or imagined audience.7 There are a election. variety of reasons underpinning the desire to Such stories occupy a significant place in the deceive or mislead (discussed in greater detail broader news and information environment, one below), and one of the most vital elements increasingly characterized by “alternative facts” inscribed into the production of fake news is in a “post-truth” era.6 Postman’s work on media that it is never a static entity: some fake news ecology can be applied here, as fake news repre- producers ensure that the revelation of fakery sents a discursive apparatus that is currently giv- is built into the architecture of their work; ing form to “a culture’s politics, social others invite skepticism but ask their publics to organization, and habitual ways of thinking” do much of the interpretive legwork; and a far (“Humanism” 10). In fact, fake news’s place greater number of these figures produce false within a more diffuse news and information ecol- news narratives and accompanying images in ogy has amplified the degree to which all news the express interests of promoting falsehoods. participates in what Hartley calls the “primary To connect fake news to propaganda is useful as sense-making practice of modernity” (32). How a point of departure for understanding the basic we make sense of the contemporary (political) contours of its overall makeup.8 Forfakenewsto climate is contingent on a number of factors, be understood as propaganda, making distinctions and Scolari’s insights regarding how consumers between overt and covert forms of disinformation of media (readers, viewers, and users) coevolve is warranted. In Propaganda: The Formation of with multiple media suggest that the expansion Men’s Attitudes (1965), Jacques Ellul elaborates his of fake news narratives can precipitate a shift in theory of “total propaganda,” in which an orga- how citizens construct competing worldviews nized group avails itself of multiple media plat- (215).