Anatomy of Fake News: A Critical News Literacy Education

by Nolan Higdon

Since the 2016 U.S. presidential election, concerns about fake news have fostered calls for government regulation and industry intervention to mitigate the influence of false content. These proposals are hindered by a lack of consensus concerning the definition of fake news or its origins. Media scholar Nolan Higdon contends that expanded access to critical media literacy education, grounded in a comprehensive history of fake news, is a more promising solution to these issues. The Anatomy of Fake News offers the first historical examination of fake news that takes as its goal the effective teaching of critical news literacy in the United States. Higdon employs a critical-historical media ecosystems approach to identify the producers, themes, purposes, and influences of fake news. The findings are then incorporated into an invaluable fake news detection kit. This much-needed resource provides a rich history and a promising set of pedagogical strategies for mitigating the pernicious influence of fake news.

247 pages, Hardcover

Published August 4, 2020

Reviews

[Victoria · Rating 3 out of 5]

Una mirada bastante completa de la historia y el impacto de las fake news.
En el capítulo final hay diez consideraciones para que el lector pueda usar como guía para saber si el contenido que se consume es falso o no, que me pareció genial.

[Mahita Shankar · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you have ever questioned or argued about where we get our News, I encourage you to read The Anatomy of Fake News by Nolan Higdon. The book is separated into seven sections, with the time frames from 2016 to 2017. While there is a debate about what news gets perceived as real news and not fake news in our present society, the primary author, Nolan Higdon, does an excellent job portraying how the news affects the media and the audience who reads fake news.
The book starts with the 2016 election, where President-elect Donald Trump yells at the CNN news organization as terrible and shouts at the CNN reporter that they are mainly fake news. Since then, the word fake news has been prominent in American conversations. Since then, citizens have mistrusted the press concerning fake news. Most Americans are unable to figure out journalism from fake news. Digital outlets have transformed America into the most media-saturated society in history. “About 75 percent of Americans take in some kind of news at least once daily” (Higdon 23).
Fake News causes the moral panic of the colonial era as “dehumanization, fake news content that is designed to spread fear can cause a moral panic.”(Higdon 30) In addition, it shows that fake news inspires moral fright in African Americans. The Fake News Press has made political propaganda apparatuses that convinced the public to create fake news stories, such as a girl who falsely claimed that she witnessed the Iraqi Army launching babies out of incubators.

“Digital propaganda machines employ digital fake news for a variety of functions.”(Higdon 115) Digital fake news has caused internet trolls to start quarrels and offend people. It has been accused that spreading fake news has influenced the Crimean people. Regarding fighting fake news, “Traditionally, government regulation, like censorship, has failed to combat fake news because it operates from the false assumption that news consumers can differentiate between fake news and journalism.” (Higdon 130) This explains how news consumers face fake news in news sources and journalists they find online, and it gives an example of providing diverse views in news media. The Communication Act empowered the federal government to limit the number of media outlets owned by a company in a particular market. Despite this regulation, fake news content creators started many companies and created media outlets to spread fake content. Similarly, he showed examples of how other regulations failed to prevent fake news from spreading.

This book is an excellent read because there are so many perspectives in this story to be examined by the reader. I recommend this book since it educates readers about the fake news regarding news sources. This book is an excellent find to understand the sources of fake news and figure out how to separate them from our daily news.

[kenzie lai · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book was really well written, and Higdon made a lot of valid points in how fake Nws has been weaponised over time, from the publication of the first newspaper to the digital age. His discussions were really insightful in regards to how fake news is embedded in our daily lives and how much misinformation affects us, such as through politics or our education.