Post-Truth: Disinformation and Fake News in the Digital Media Age

By: Nour Salman, Media & Cultural Studies Researcher – FARAS

Disinformation is by no means a new phenomenon, but with continuous developments and increased use of social networking sites by various politicians and spokespersons, is the press prepared to take on fake news in the digital media war against disinformation? How can the media counter propaganda-fueled news agencies? Can the press face politicians that use social media to sway the public? How can the media combat a complete disregard for facts in the so called post-truth dilemma? The above questions will be analyzed further to determine what the future of news and the media may look like with the advent of post-truth and disinformation.

FIRST - What is Disinformation?

Disinformation has long been a resource for governments to spread propaganda in order to recruit the masses and sway public opinion, most prominently during the Cold War period where the former USSR and USA applied disinformation as a core policy. In 1999, David Rothkopf wrote on ‘The Disinformation Age’ analyzing “volatile global markets, deception, misrepresentation and outright dishonesty” following the aftermath of the Asian Financial Crisis.[i] Whilst Rothkopf’s article highlighted prominent discourse on disinformation and media limitations, this was certainly not a first-time occurrence. However, having established that disinformation is not a new phenomenon, it “seems to have become much more prevalent in recent years.”[ii] Thus, what is disinformation and how is it applied in the digital media age?

There is an abundance of literature that both describes and critically examines disinformation. Worth noting, when defining disinformation, one must be conscious of an important distinction between information, misinformation and disinformation, which is, as Stahl writes “the question of truth.”[iii] Whilst both misinformation and disinformation both entail the absence of truth, disinformation entails intentional deception.[iv] James Fetzer of the Department of Philosophy at the University of Minnesota elaborates on this further stating, “‘misinformation’ can be simply defined as false, mistaken, or misleading information, ‘disinformation’ entails the distribution, assertion, or dissemination of false, mistaken, or misleading information in an intentional, deliberate, or purposeful effort to mislead, deceive or confuse.”[v] As such, disinformation is particularly problematic, because the very intention is to mislead and sway the audience’s perceptions.

As mentioned earlier, disinformation has now become even more prominent, and with new information technologies constantly developing it is now much “easier for people to create and disseminate inaccurate and misleading information.”[vi] Social Networking Sites (SNSs) such as Facebook and Twitter provide accessibility for individuals to post various media through the means of articles, images, tweets and videos via cost-effective technologies. And whilst the accessibility to information and various media channels via SNSs has a myriad of positive aspects, it is disconcerting when the use of disinformation is propagated to mislead users of such sites. Hackers, government officials, news agencies, amongst others are now disseminating disinformation as a means to sway the public sphere and have wider geo-political impact when reporting on crises and global changes.

SECOND – The Weaponization of Information

With Russia’s direct participation in the Syrian Crisis, the spread of ISIS in the Middle East, Donald Trump winning the latest US Elections, and global economic uncertainty, instability and increased threats are a constant in the current global environment. Varying geopolitical changes currently occurring on the global stage and the advances in cost-effective technologies allow for the dissemination of information at a faster, less expensive way then ever before. This creates a space for individuals and agencies to bend and play with information in a way that could be damaging on a global scale. Considered as a geopolitical evolution, “both elite and public opinion has proved ill-prepared about how to react to policy change”, as a result, “state propaganda agencies step in the breach, making…the ‘weaponization of information’ a central facet of international conflict.”[vii]

What weaponization of information essentially means is that both state and non-state actors can play an influential role in changing public perceptions about a certain crisis, topic and peoples to push forward their various agendas. Kenneth Weinstein elaborates further, stating the weaponization of information has become a skill in which state and non-state actors aggressively “use the tools of a free society, including the media and social media, to distort reality, and defend the indefensible” in such a pro-active, creative, and production value-oriented way that is far more sophisticated in targeting audiences then the Soviet Union was ever able to do.[viii] This is readily visible through Russia’s propaganda outlets RT and Sputnik, amongst others, as well as the self-named Islamic State (ISIS) with its proficient use of social media to spread the terrorist organization’s agenda and recruit individuals into its folds, and Donald Trump’s use of Twitter to spout vitriol amongst other agenda-setting propaganda that aided in his election win.

The common element in the weaponization of information and the spread of disinformation is the spread of propaganda leading to a post-truth phenomenon. Fundamentally, “all definitions of propaganda include the concept of persuasion”, however, with disinformation propaganda is situated where “either the focus is based on some unlawful act or the message is a misrepresentation of a lawful act or true situation” whose effectiveness is determined through immediate decision-making with no room for fact checking of said disinformation.[ix] To carry on with how disinformation can be weaponized, two primary examples will be taken into consideration: Donald Trump and his “triumph of brazen fabulation”[x] and Russia’s disinformation war to garner further geopolitical power.

THIRD – Trump ‘Truths’ and the Deliberate Use of Fake News

Arthur Goldhammer writes, Trump’s “truth derives not from tentative and fallible reckoning of future probabilities but from primal instincts. He tells it like it is, or, rather, like his minions, feeding endlessly on silos of factoid and fabrication.”[xi] As a result, political disinformation is thus ensconced within the social fabric leading to “a feedback loop of deception” and a shift in “attitude toward evidence and even truth itself.”[xii] This was clearly demonstrated in the sheer amount of disinformation and fake news tweeted by the President-elect himself. BuzzFeed News provided a detailed analysis of Trump’s twitter account since the launch of his presidential campaign up until November 17, 2016. The analysis determined the following:

   “When it comes to news sources, the stories tweeted by Trump…suggest that he is unfazed by news of questionable accuracy, likely to rely on hyper-partisan news, and apt to promote mainstream news only when it validates his opinions…Trump’s reliance on sources and stories of questionable accuracy stands out both in frequency and in engagement. The stories shared by Trump’s account throughout his campaign suggest the president-elect has constructed a powerful online filter bubble that largely flatters and confirms that which he claims to be true.”[xiii]

With over 16 million followers, the profound impact on audience perceptions is tremendous. Interestingly, the feedback loop and attitudes towards truth that Michal Lynch speaks of is portrayed through the fake news stories that went viral on social media websites, including Facebook, which were pro-Trump in nature and disseminated from a group of hackers situated in Macedonia. Shortly prior to the US elections, BuzzFeed News reported that “the top-performing fake election news stories on Facebook generated more engagement than the top stories from major news outlets such as the New York Times, Washington Post, Huffington Post, NBC News, and others.”[xiv] So how then have news agencies and prominent news outlets countered disinformation?

Fact checking was the main approach applied by several news agencies, and when there were major discrepancies, news outlets responded. However, is this enough? As Goldhammer correctly asserts, “facts are still checked, but falsehood is no longer penalized: The enormity of Trump’s lies and the rapidity with which he dropped his bombs on the ever vulnerable news cycle…[where] opponents were left sputtering, while the media was transfixed by the sheer chutzpah of a candidate” whereby “such assertions cannot be ‘fact-checked’.”[xv]

FOURTH – Russia’s Hostile Disinformation War

Russia has come to the forefront of the disinformation war in the digital media age. It has far exceeded the former Soviet Union’s capacities with the flow of propaganda both internally and externally. With near total control of mass media within the state, and renewed attention to the international broadcasting organization, RT, the Russian government is now able to limit the access to information by the Russian public, “focusing attention on external threats rather than internal problems” within the state, thus engaging in an international disinformation war to garner support for Russian foreign policy maneuvers.[xvi]

Like the case of Crimea and Eastern Ukraine, Russia has expertly waged a disinformation campaign on the Syrian crisis both via television, covert channels and online media formats. Russia is engaging in tactics similar to that of the former Soviet Union by planting false stories, however the difference between then and now is that the speed and sheer volume of disinformation dissemination is much faster and larger, reaching a wider audience both on the local and global stage. Russian disinformation – dezinformatsiya – has a fundamental purpose, that is, “to undermine the official version of events — even the very idea that there is a true version of events — and foster a kind of policy paralysis.”[xvii] As the RAND Corporation reports, by emphasising the creation of first impressions, Russia’s disinformation propaganda model creates a resilience and reinforcement of ideas and perceptions through repetition, whether through RT or the myriad online websites that cannot be formerly connected to the news organization.[xviii]

It is this very particular policy paralysis that has various states within the European Union (EU) and the United States leaning towards taking action. In the case of Europe, many “upstart political parties’ messaging fits neatly into a pro-Russian narrative.”[xix] Examples include Marine Le Pen of the National Front in France, and the UK Independence Party Leader Nigel Farage who both have had abysmal narratives on the Syrian Crisis, supporting Russia’s current role and airstrikes targeting civilian populations in Aleppo. As Kavitha Surana reports, the link between Europe’s rising anti-establishment movements and the Kremlin’s disinformation campaign “is aimed at undermining trust in democratic institutions, weakening NATO, and shifting debates in Europe to benefit Russia.”[xx]

In response to this shift, the European Parliament passed a resolution responding to Russian disinformation, which recommends the monitoring of sources of financing for anti-European propaganda, support of task forces to highlight disinformation tactics, and requesting the European Commission to provide financial support to independent media outlets.[xxi] Whilst the European resolution is a positive first step, prospects for true implementation are still weak.

A similar tactic was applied by the United States, whereby efforts to combat Russia’s foreign propaganda advanced in Congress in late November 2016. Congressional negotiators “approved an initiative to track and combat foreign propaganda amid growing concerns that Russian efforts to spread ‘fake news’ and disinformation threaten US national security.”[xxii] Like the EU’s resolution, the US initiative calls for government-wide efforts to identify and counter propaganda efforts with factual reporting. Should the US House and Senate approve this measure, then it could reach President Obama, leading to the “most significant initiative against foreign government’s disinformation campaigns since the 1990s.”[xxiii] Considering President Obama has less than two months left in office, will the newly elected Trump administration carry forward such an initiative? Or will we witness a convergence of tactics applied by Trump and Putin to further exasperate disinformation in the digital media wars?

Conclusion – Post-Truth and Ethical Perceptions

With the above analysis we have witnessed a repeat in measures employed by politicians and governments to sway public perceptions. Steven Kates reiterates this notion, stating “politicians have employed the media in many varied contexts, ostensibly using it to create and develop their images, explain their platforms, and communicate various types of messages to the public.”[xxiv] In the postmodern perspective, political process must provide truth and adequate information through access to various channels of communication.[xxv] This assumption is problematic because it assumes that the public is unable or unwilling to decipher and evaluate the information communicated rather than viewing “the participation of the ordinary citizen” as “significantly constrained by the boundaries of the ‘received view’ of established discourse.”[xxvi] But where does the responsibility lie?

Whilst a critical feature of media rituals “is the selectivity of the participants in accepting or rejecting certain communication messages”[xxvii] still applies, it is not enough to place sole responsibility on the audience “to obtain enough information in order to discount falsehoods and forge their own version of the truth.” This is especially in light of advances in digital media; news outlets need to take the lead in providing independent, in-depth and objective coverage of issues and analysis to overcome the tirade of disinformation in the post-truth era.