B2 – Upper Intermediate
Every day we come face to face with fake news. It has been there for centuries, but with the advent of social media, it has become more prevalent these days. It could affect someone personally or impact the society on a global scale. There are obviously several disadvantages to fake news and these include the following:
Change in Public Opinion
This is blatant within the political sphere where fake news is used to manipulate the public’s opinion for profit, public support, or to change the public’s mind about a rival political party.
Defamation
Despite everyone enjoying the right to self-expression, there are those who misuse this right to defame well-known global personalities. Fake news is a great way of spreading false information beyond the internet. Two common examples are when one hears about a celebrity’s affair or when a celebrity experiences their own death through a death hoax.
False Insight
Regardless of whether they are true or misleading, people tend to blindly believe the words of an influential person. Most people choose not to dig deeper and find it out for themselves. Therefore, negatively changing their perception about someone or something in the news.
Amazingly, there is a silver lining. We may notice some positive things about fake news as well.
Recreation Consider satire or works of parody that are meant to be for fun. Just think of all the celebrity gossips or the fact that some people think that reptiloids are among us! Everyone, whether offline or on the internet, loves a good laugh.
Improvement in Memory According to the journal Psychological Science, the ability to recall a time when you heard or read fake news helps your brain to remember true information. A research team conducted two experiments on 96 participants. Throughout the experiments, their memory was tested to check whether recollections were true or based on misinformation. They read both factual and made-up statements from news sites and then read statements that corrected the fake news. It turned out that misinformation reminders helped the participants see the cracks in their memories and promoted better memory recollection. Also, individuals that face fake news head-on have a raised awareness of disparities between what is fact and what is fiction and have better memory updating. Clearly, regardless of the kind of fake news, there is some usefulness to it.
Now you know that there’s a break in the clouds and there might be an upside to dealing with disinformation. But be careful and don’t let fake news determine what you think or who you are.
Discussion Questions:
- What other pros and cons can you add to this list?
- Do you think the pros of fake news justify distributing it? Why or why not)?
- Is it worth trying to fight such fake news in an attempt to stop blatant disinformation?
- How would you explain to your grandmother that she shouldn’t believe everything she reads and that hoaxes are published everyday?
- Where do you get your news from and why do you choose these sources?
- Have you ever encountered an internet hoax that you actually believed but later on found out wasn’t true?