Fake news and generation z journalists. Post-millennial solutions against disinformation

Main Article Content

David García-Marín

Abstract

Disinformation has been one of the most analyzed issues in recent years in media studies. However, there is still a lack of research on young media professionals´ perceptions about this problem. They are considered to be essential in the adoption of future strategies to tackle fake news. This research intends to discover the hegemonic ideas of new journalists on this problem and how they perceive its possible solutions. A total of 45 in-depth interviews with Generation Z journalists (mean age: 24.14 years) were carried out, complemented with two focus groups and the application of a semantic differential scale, whose results were analyzed using both descriptive and inferential statistics. New journalists affirm the solution to the problem should be approached from a convergent technocentrism that combines technological determinism with a traditionalist perspective that resorts to the old values of journalism to combat the information disorders that proliferate today. Data journalism, which merges traditional journalistic practices with new technological tools, is perceived as a more effective solution than fact-checking and artificial intelligence, even though the latter two practices are considered as faster strategies to tackle disinformation. Likewise, new journalists highlight the need to develop digital, critical, and media literacy for citizens.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

Article Details

How to Cite
García-Marín, David. 2021. “Fake News and Generation Z Journalists. Post-Millennial Solutions Against Disinformation”. Vivat Academia. Journal of Communication 154 (June):37-63. https://doi.org/10.15178/va.2021.154.e1324.
Section
Monograph 1
Author Biography

David García-Marín, Rey Juan Carlos University

Doctor by the UNED. Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication Sciences and Sociology of the Rey Juan Carlos University (Madrid, Spain), where he teaches the subject New Technologies and Information Society. In parallel, he works as a visiting professor in various master's degrees in digital communication, new pedagogies, and transmedia journalism at UNED, where he has also directed several courses on digital media and disinformation. His research areas focus on podcasting and digital audio, disinformation, transmedia journalism, and artificial intelligence applied to media communication. He is the author of numerous articles and books focused on current perspectives on communication and the challenge of misinformation in today's society. His last published book is La posverdad. Una cartografía de los medios, las redes y la política (Gedisa, 2019).

References

Aleixandre-Benavent, R., Castelló-Cogollos, L. y Valderrama-Zurián, J. C. (2020). Infodemia, desinformación y papel de los profesionales de la información. Profesional de la información, 29(4), e290408. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.08 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.08

Amrita, M. (2017). Understanding the plague of fake news and how to combat it. Medium. Recuperado de: https://bit.ly/2JoPGSp

Andreu-Sánchez, C., & Martín-Pascual, M. A. (2020). Fake images of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the communication of information at the beginning of the first Covid-19 pandemic. El profesional de la información, 29(3), e290309. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.09 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.09

Aparici, R. y García-Marín, D. (2019). La posverdad. Una cartografía de los medios, las redes y la política. Gedisa.

Ball, J. (2017). Post-truth: How bullshit conquered the world. Biteback Publishing.

Benkler, Y., Faris, R., & Roberts, H. (2018). Network propaganda: Manipulation, disinformation, and radicalization in American politics. Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190923624.001.0001

Bennett, S., Maton, K., & Kervin, L. (2008). The Digital Natives Debate: A Critical Review of the Evidence. British Journal of Edu- cational Technology, 39(5), 775-786. http://doi:10.1111/- j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x DOI: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8535.2007.00793.x

Blanco-Herrero, D. y Arcila-Calderón, C. (2019). Deontología y noticias falsas: estudio de las percepciones de periodistas españoles. El profesional de la información, 28(3), e280308. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.may.08 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2019.may.08

Brandtzaeg, P. B., Følstad, A., & Chaparro-Domínguez, M. A. (2018). How journalists and social media users perceive online fact-checking and verification services. Journalism practice, 12(9), 1109-1129. https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2017.1363657 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/17512786.2017.1363657

Breakstone, J., Smith, M., & Wineburg, S. (2019). Students´ civic online reasoning: A national portrait. Standford Digital Repository. https://stanford.io/33pvcjY

Brennen J. S., Simón, F., Howard, P. N., & Kleis-Nielsen, R. (2020). Types, sources, and claims of Covid-19 misinformation. Reuters Institute. https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/types-sources-and-claims-covid-19-misinformation

Callejo, J. y Viedma, A. (2005). Proyectos y estrategias de investigación social: la perspectiva de la intervención. Mc Graw Hill/Interamericana de España

Cassany, D., & Ayala, G. (2008). Nativos e inmigrantes digitales en la escuela. CEE, Participación Educativa, 9, 53-71.

Corbetta, P. (2007). Metodologías y técnicas de investigación social. Mc Graw Hill/Interamericana de España

Corner, J. (2017). Fake news, post-truth and media-political change. Media, Culture and Society, 39(7), 1100-1107. https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443717726743 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0163443717726743

D´Ancona, M. (2017). Post-truth. The new war on truth and how to fight back. Ebury Press

Dahlgren, P. (2018). Media, knowledge and trust: The deepening epistemic crisis of democracy. Javnost-The Public, 25(1-2), 20-27. https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2018.1418819 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13183222.2018.1418819

Davies, W. (2016). The age of post-truth politics. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/24/opinion/campaign-stops/the-age-of-post-truth-politics.html

DiFranzo, D. & Gloria-García, K. (2017). Filter bubbles and fake news. XRDS: Crossroads, The ACM Mafazine for Students, 23(3), 32-35. https://doi.org/10.1145/3055153 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3055153

Elías, C., & Catalan-Matamoros, D. (2020). Coronavirus in Spain: Fear of ‘official’fake news boosts WhatsApp and alternative sources. Media and Communication, 8(2), 462-466. http://dx.doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.3217 DOI: https://doi.org/10.17645/mac.v8i2.3217

Fernández, F. J. y Fernández, M. J. (2016). Los docentes de la Generación Z y sus competencias digitales. Comunicar, 46, 97-105. http://dx.doi.org/10.3916/C46-2016-10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3916/C46-2016-10

Frías-Navarro, D. (2019). Apuntes de consistencia interna de las puntuaciones de un instrumento de medida. Universidad de Valencia. https://www.uv.es/friasnav/AlfaCronbach.pdf

Fuller, S. (2018). Post-truth: Knowledge as a power game. Anthem Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/j.ctvgd30v

Gallardo, E. (2012). Hablemos de estudiantes digitales y no de nativos digitales. UT, Revista de Ciències de l Educació, 7-21. DOI: https://doi.org/10.17345/ute.2012.1.595

Gallotti, R., Valle, F., Castaldo, N., Sacco, P., & De Domenico, M. (2020). Assessing the risks of ‘infodemics’ in response to Covid-19 epidemics. MedRxiv. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.08.20057968 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.04.08.20057968

García-Marín. D. (2020). Infodemia global. Desórdenes informativos, narrativas fake y fact-checking en la crisis de la Covid-19. Profesional de la información, 29(4), e290411. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.11 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.jul.11

Graves, L. (2016). Deciding what´s true. The rise of political fact-checking in American journalism. Columbia University. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7312/grav17506

Guo, L., & Vargo, C. (2018). Fake news and emerging online media ecosystem: an integrated intermedia agenda-setting analysis of the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election. Communication Research, 47(2), 1-23. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0093650218777177 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0093650218777177

Heathman, A. (2018). If fake news is a disease, this Bad News game wants to be the vaccination. Evening Standard. https://bit.ly/3qbfbrg

Higdon, N. (2020). The anatomy of fake news. University of California Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520975842

Hunt, E. (2016). What is fake news? How to spot it and what you can do to stop it. The Guardian. https://bit.ly/3nVNcKu

Iosifidis P., & Nicoli N. (2020). Digital Democracy, Social Media and Disinformation. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429318481

Kakutani, M. (2018). The death of truth: Notes on falsehood in the age of Trump. Tim Duggans Books.

Keyes, R. (2004). The post-truth era: Dishonesty and deception in contemporary life. St. Martin´s Press.

Kucharski, A. (2016). Post-truth: Study epidemiology of fake news. Nature, 540(7634), 525-525. https://doi.org/10.1038/540525a DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/540525a

Lewandowsky, S., Ecker, U. K. H., & Cook, J. (2017). Beyond Misinformation: Understanding and Coping with the “Post-Truth” Era. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, 6(4), 353-369. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jarmac.2017.07.008

Masip, P., Suau, J. y Ruiz-Caballero, C. (2020). Percepciones sobre medios de comunicación y desinformación: ideología y polarización en el sistema mediático español. Profesional de la información 29(5), e290527. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.27 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.sep.27

Mendiguren, T., Pérez Dasilva, J. y Meso Ayerdi, K. (2020). Actitud ante las Fake News: Estudio del caso de los estudiantes de la Universidad del País Vasco. Revista De Comunicación, 19(1), 171-184. https://doi.org/10.26441/RC19.1-2020-A10 DOI: https://doi.org/10.26441/RC19.1-2020-A10

McIntyre, L. (2018). Post-truth. MIT Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/11483.001.0001

McNair, B. (2018). Fake news. Falsehood, fabrication and fantasy in journalism. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315142036

Murolo, L. (2019). La posverdad es mentira. Un aporte conceptual sobre fake news y periodismo. En: R. Aparici y D. García-Marín (Coords.), La posverdad. Una cartografía de los medios, las redes y la política (65-80). Gedisa.

Pérez-Dasilva, J., Meso-Ayerdi, K. y Mendiguren-Galdospín, T. (2020). Fake news y coronavirus: detección de los principales actores y tendencias a través del análisis de las conversaciones en Twitter. El profesional de la información, 29(3), e290308. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.08 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.08

Peters, M. A., Jandric, P. & McLaren, P. (2020). Viral modernity? Epidemics, infodemics, and the bioinformatioonal paradigm. Educatioonal philosophy and theory. https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1744226 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/00131857.2020.1744226

Rawlinson, K. (2017). Fake news is killing people´s minds, says Apple boss Tim Cook. The Telegraph. https://bit.ly/3lf2EzD

Reig, D. y Vilchez, L. (2013). Los jóvenes en la era de la hiperconectividad: tendencias, claves y miradas. Fundación Telefónica.

Rubin, V. L. (2019). The disinformation triangle. The epidemiology of “fake news”. Journal of Documentation, 75(5), 1013-1034. https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2018-0209 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/JD-12-2018-0209

Salaverría, R., Buslón, N., López-Pan, F., León, B., López-Goñi, I. y Erviti, M. C. (2020). Desinformación en tiempos de pandemia: tipología de los bulos sobre la Covid-19. El profesional de la información, 29(3), e290315. https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.15 DOI: https://doi.org/10.3145/epi.2020.may.15

Sambrook, R. (2018). Fake news week. Three stories that reveal the extreme pressure journalism is now under. The Conversation. https://bit.ly/3ldpG9X

Sánchez-Duarte, J. M. y Magallón-Rosa, R. (2020). Infodemia y COVID-19. Evolución y viralización de informaciones falsas en España. Revista Española de Comunicación en Salud, 31-41. https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5417 DOI: https://doi.org/10.20318/recs.2020.5417

Sánchez-Gey Valenzuela, N. (2019). False news and the work of information professionals in the coverage of events. IROCAMM: International Review of Communication and Marketing Mix, 2(1), 74-86. http://dx.doi.org/10.12795/IROCAMM.2019.v02.i01.07 DOI: https://doi.org/10.12795/IROCAMM.2019.v02.i01.07

Schinkel, W. (2008). Contexts of anxiety: The moral panic over “senseless violence” in the Netherlands. Current Sociology, 56(5), 735-756. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0011392108093833 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/0011392108093833

Seemiler, C., & Grace, M. (2016). Generation Z Goes to College. Jossey-Bass.

Silverman, C. (2017). What do we mean when we say fake news? The Fake Newsletter. https://bit.ly/39nh12v

Singh, A. P., & Dangmei, J. (2016). Understanding the Generation Z: The Future Workforce. South-Asian Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies, 3(3), 1-5.

Stelter, B. (2016). The plague of fake news is getting worse: Here´s how to protect yourself. CNN Media. https://cnn.it/2KOl4e0

Suiter, J. (2016). Post-truth politics. Political insight, 7(3), 25-27. https://doi.org/10.1177/2041905816680417 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1177/2041905816680417

Thurston, I. (2018). Everything is permitted, restrictions still aplly: A psychoanalytic perspective on social dislocation, narcissism, and post truth. Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780429432101

Tracy, S. J. (2020). Qualitative research methods. Wiley-Blackwell.

Turner, A. (2015). Generation Z: Technology and Social Interest. The Journal of Individual Psychology, 71(2), 103-113. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/jip.2015.0021

Vosoughi, S., Roy, D. & Aral, S. (2018). The spread of true and false news online. Science, 359(March), 1146-1151. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559 DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aap9559

Wooley, S. (2020). The Reality Game: How the Next Wave of Technology Will Break the Truth and What We Can Do About It. Endevour.

Woollacott, E. (2016). In today´s post-factual politics. Google´s fact-check tag may not be much help. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/emmawoollacott/2016/10/14/in-todays-post-factual-politics-googles-fact-check-tag-may-not-be-much-help/

Similar Articles

<< < 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 > >> 

You may also start an advanced similarity search for this article.