PRIFYSGOL BANGOR / B
ANGOR UNIVERSITY
Fake News and the Economy of Emotions
Bakir, Vian; McStay, Andrew
Digital Journalism
DOI:
10.1080/21670811.2017.1345645
Published: 01/01/2018
Peer reviewed version
Cyswllt i'r cyhoeddiad / Link to publication
Dyfyniad o'r fersiwn a gyhoeddwyd / Citation for published version (APA):
Bakir, V., & McStay, A. (2018). Fake News and the Economy of Emotions: Problems, Causes,
Solutions. Digital Journalism, 6(2), 154-175. https://doi.org/10.1080/21670811.2017.1345645
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1
Fake News and the Economy of Emotions: Problems, Causes, Solutions
Vian Bakir and Andrew McStay
Abstract
This paper examines the 2016 US presidential election campaign to identify problems with,
causes of, and solutions to, the contemporary fake news phenomenon. To do this we employ
textual analysis and feedback from engagement, meetings and panels with technologists,
journalists, editors, non-profits, public relations firms, analytics firms and academics during
the globally-leading technology conference, South-by-South West, in March 2017. We further
argue that what is most significant about the contemporary fake news furore is what it
portends: the use of personally and emotionally targeted news produced by algo-journalism
and what we term ‘empathic media’. In assessing solutions to this democratically problematic
situation, we recommend that greater attention be paid to the role of digital advertising in
causing, and combating both the contemporary fake news phenomenon, and the near-horizon
variant of empathically-optimised automated fake news.
Keywords: digital advertising, emotion, Facebook, fake news, Trump election, empathic
media
Introduction
We analyse the contemporary fake news phenomenon that emerged during the 2016 US
presidential election campaign battle between Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, as pro-
Trump fake news stories spread across Facebook. Definitions of fake news abound, including
“propaganda entertainment” (Khaldarova and Pantti 2016, 893); “using satire to discuss
public affairs” (Marchi 2012, 253); and content that “blurs lines between nonfiction and
fiction” (Berkowitz and Schwartz 2016, 4). More comprehensively, Wardle (2017)
deconstructs fake news into seven categories: false connection (where headlines, visuals or
captions do not support the content); false context (genuine content shared with false
contextual information); manipulated content (genuine imagery/information manipulated to
deceive); misleading content (misleading use of information to frame an issue or individual);
imposter content (genuine sources are impersonated); fabricated content (100% false,
designed to deceive and harm); and satire/parody (with potential to fool but no intention to
cause harm) (Wardle 2017). Distilling Wardle’s (2017) typology, we define fake news as
either wholly false or containing deliberately misleading elements incorporated within its
content or context. A core feature of contemporary fake news is that it is widely circulated
online (Bounegru et al. 2017, 8) where people accept as fact “stories of uncertain provenance
or accuracy” (Culture, Media and Sport Committee 2017).
We begin by assessing social and democratic problems with contemporary fake news,
and proceed to examine solutions offered by companies such as Facebook. We argue that, at
heart, the fake news problem concerns the economics of emotion: specifically, how emotions
are leveraged to generate attention and viewing time, which converts to advertising revenue.
We further point out the economic and political incentives to produce automated fake news
that reacts to what we term online “fellow-feeling”, or group emotional behaviour within
social networks. The capacity to better understand feelings, moods and emotions in
networked communication is rapidly increasing through adoption of online and biofeedback
technologies that pertain to record and assess our emotions - what McStay (2016b) terms
“empathic media”. This catchall term reflects an overall rise of interest in mediated emotional
life, which is gauged by a range of technologies for a number of purposes. Technologies
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include facial coding, voice analytics, virtual reality, augmented reality, wearables, biosensors
and sentiment analysis. By making emotions machine-readable these can be employed to
enhance peoples’ relationships with devices and content, but there is also increased capacity
to influence (McStay 2016b, 2017, 2018 forthcoming). Of greatest relevance to the fake news
issue is analysis of emotions in words and images (sentiment analysis). We suggest that the
potential to manipulate public sentiment via empathically-optimised automated fake news is a
near-horizon problem that could rapidly dwarf the contemporary fake news problem. We
conclude that more attention should be paid to the role of digital advertising, both in causing,
and combating contemporary and near-horizon fake news phenomena.
Methods
Our case study is the contemporary fake news phenomenon that emerged during the
2016 US presidential election campaign. Its seeds were laid in 2010 when Facebook
introduced its newsfeed algorithm, Edgerank. This has since evolved into a machine-learning
algorithm that prioritises and presents content to users based on factors including what they
have engaged with (likes/reactions, comments, shares, views, clicks and pauses), what groups
they belong to, and the type of content Facebook is currently prioritising. In 2016, populist,
mostly pro-Trump fake news stories spread across Facebook, often generating more audience
engagement than real news stories (Silverman 2016), creating consternation that Facebook
and fake news may have influenced the election’s outcome. This prompted Facebook, other
telecommunications platforms, legacy and digital news outlets and agencies, and non-profit
organisations to find solutions to combat fake news. In January 2017, the UK Parliament’s
Culture, Media and Sport Committee launched its Fake News Inquiry to identify best
solutions.
1
In April 2017, Germany’s government planned to legislate for fines of up to 50
million Euros if social media networks refuse to remove fake news, hate speech and other
illegal content. As such, this is a politically and socially important case study, with numerous
implications for democratic health (outlined later).
Trump’s election win confounded most pollsters and mainstream journalists, but
analytics company Ezyinsights predicted the win from the Trump’s campaign’s Facebook
engagement (El-Sharawy 2016). Through qualitative, thematic textual analysis, we glean
insights into the content that engaged Facebook users, using this to help us diagnose what is
socially and democratically problematic about contemporary fake news. We focus on
captioned images popular on the Facebook page of far-right American news, opinion and
commentary website, Breitbart. These are significant to examine for various reasons. Firstly,
analysis from EzyInsights of social media engagement for the nine months prior to the US
presidential election (February to October 2016) shows that for almost this entire period,
Trump generated much more Facebook engagement than Clinton. EzyInsights shows that the
Facebook engagement resulted from Trump’s campaign emphasising video and captioned
images at specific moments when their audience was ready to engage (El-Sharawy 2016).
Secondly, according to EzyInsights, Breitbart generated high user engagement on Facebook –
as much as the Huffington Post – with Breitbart’s captioned images generating the most
engagement across August to October 2016 (El-Sharawy 2017). EzyInsights’ study, however,
does not delve into their content.
Addressing this gap, our sample comprises all Breitbart captioned images archived in
Breitbart’s Facebook Timeline Photos in the five weeks prior to the US presidential election
(1 October to 7 November 2016) – a total of 75 images.
2
Using a data-first approach (Miles,
Huberman, and Saldana 2014), we thematically code each image to identify its key message,
noting the caption, visual image, and Breitbart’s accompanying comment and hashtag on
Facebook. We found that the emergent themes frequently focused on the candidates’
personalities, the news media, the voters and policy issues. While the captioned images merit
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a separate paper to delve into their rich semiotic and multi-modal construction, due to reasons
of space we summarise our qualitative findings with a table that illustrates commonly
occurring themes (five occurrences or more) (Table 1). Given our paper’s focus, we were
particularly alert to whether these themes (1) contribute to the fake news discourse; and (2)
stimulate and affectively engage audiences – these aspects are discussed in a later section on
social and democratic problems.
Table 1 Main repeated themes in Breitbart’s Facebook Timeline Photos (1 Oct. – 7 Nov.
2016)
Theme
Example
No. of
images
About Candidates’ Personality
Hillary Clinton is
crooked & corrupt
The caption in red is, “Sec of State Hillary Clinton approved the
transfer of 20% of US uranium to Putin’s Russia as 9 investors
in the deal funneled [sic] $145 million to the Clinton
Foundation. NYT & Clinton Cash”. The largely black image
behind the caption is a head-and-shoulder shot of a silhouette of
a woman’s head (20 Oct.)
16
Trump is a winner
The caption in black letters, “Trump wins stunning debate
victory!” is against a backdrop of the US flag. In front of this is a
three-quarters shot of Trump, applauding (10 Oct.)
6
About News Media
Establishment
media are rigged in
favour of Clinton
The caption, “Establishment media are Hillary Clinton campaign
workers”, is in yellow lettering against a purple background,
accompanied by Breitbart’s hashtag, “#rigged” (16 Oct.)
6
Promoting
Breitbart
The caption in white is “battle gear” above a photo of pro-Trump
campaigning products (a baseball cap, T- shirts and mug) each
displaying Breitbart’s logo or product colors (16 Oct.)
5
About Voters
Clinton thinks
Trump voters are
‘deplorable’
The caption, “Hillary thinks you’re deplorable. The media
think’s you’re stupid” floats above a photo of an old man
wearing a US Marines T-shirt and holding up a “Trump/Pence –
Make America Great Again” poster (10 Oct.)
5
Urging Trump
voters to vote
The yellow-lettered caption, “Let’s roll, deplorables”, is against
a backdrop of Trump speaking at a podium (28 Oct.)
5
About Policy Issues
Trump will end
political corruption
& protect jobs/
national security
The caption, “It’s time to drain the swamp”, appears in yellow-
highlighted black capitals, over a mid-shot of Trump speaking at
the podium, accompanied by Breitbart’s hashtags,
“#Debate2016 #DrainTheSwamp” (20 Oct.)
5
We enrich our case study with conversations with technologists, journalists, editors and
analytics firms conducted across seven days in March during the Interactive portion of the
2017 South-by-South West (SXSW) event. This globally-renowned, annual technology
conference, trade fair and festival presents cutting edge practices and ideas capable of
transforming the future of entertainment, culture and technology. Through 17 hour-long
interactive panel and solo sessions from journalism, marketing, government and the
technology industry, we asked questions, debated and ascertained current thinking and
practice among a wide range of interested parties to the contemporary fake news phenomenon
(see Table 2).
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Table 2 Organisations Discussing Fake News Phenomenon at SXSW (2017)
Type of Organisation
Organisation
Legacy news outlets -regional
(USA)
Austin American-Statesman
The Texas Tribune
The Dallas Morning News
Legacy news outlets -national
(USA)
The Washington Post
The New York Times
News agencies (USA/Norway)
Associated Press
Norwegian News Agency
Online news curator (USA)
NextDraft
Online news aggregator/web
content rater/discussion website
(USA)
Reddit
The Huffington Post
Non-profit organisations
(USA/UK)
First Draft: finds solutions to trust and truth challenges in
digital age;
PolitiFact: fact-checker
Full Fact: fact-checker
International Fact-Checking Network/Poynter Institute:
journalism educator and fact-checker
PR/media/communications
agencies (USA/UK)
freuds
Arrow Media
Razorfish
Technology companies (USA,
Finland)
EzyInsights: provides content discovery and news tracking
service
Countable: provides mobile and web-based app enabling
people to review upcoming legislation in US Congress and
express views
Automated Insights: provides readable narratives from
analysing big data patterns
Academic
Duke University
Vanderbilt University
American University
The University of Texas at Arlington
Fake News: Historical and Contemporary Context
Today’s fake news furore must be seen against the backdrop of long-standing,
systematic, political and commercial efforts in liberal democracies to persuade and influence
populations through propaganda (Jowett and O’Donnell 2012), Public Relations (PR)
(Moloney 2006), political marketing (Scammell 2014) and spin (Miller and Dinan 2008).
News media are often a focus of persuasion and influence efforts, given their professional
commitment to accuracy, facticity, and in some cases impartiality and objectivity. Thus,
information imparted via news (or what looks like news) confers credibility and truth to the
content. The 20th and 21st centuries have seen PR firms spinning, or sometimes wholly
fabricating, news stories for their clients (Miller and Dinan 2008, Leveson Inquiry 2012).
Whether for economic or political gain, fake news in some form has long been with us, the
product of professional persuaders. However, the digital media ecology has proliferated,
democratised and intensified the scale of fake news. We argue, below, that the contemporary
fake news phenomenon is a logical outcome of five features of the digital media ecology: the
financial decline of legacy news; the news cycle’s increasing immediacy; the rapid circulation
