UNIVERZA V LJUBLJANI

FAKLUTETA ZA DRUŽBENE VEDE

Nikola Paunovski
21200340
POL – ŠPID
Mentor: asist. Nejc Slukan

Kako so lažne novice oblikovale pomembne politične dogodke, od

starih rimskih časov do ameriških predsedniških volitev leta 2016

Besedilni del predstavitve na temo: digitalizacija in medijska konvergenca

Temelji Komunikologije

Ljubljana, 21. oktober 2021

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Introduction

In the era of digitalization and media convergence, the surplus of fake news has often
exceeded factual news. Digitalization has occured in the fourth industrial revolution and the
invention of the internet, emphasizing the need of advanced technology to be in the center of
processes, products and services. Businesses today have the need to adapt to an ever –
changing global market, shifting away from traditional means of advertisment. (Parida, V.,
2018). Digitalization has also fueled the apperance of independent journalism, making it
easier for people to reach a wider audience. Today we are going to take a look into how fake
news have shaped major political events, in the ancient Roman republic before any type of
mass media existed, and in 2016, during the US presidential elections, after digitalization
reshaped mass media as we knew it. Both the US and the Roman Republic were, i.e., still is a
superpower, and a vital part of international relations. Fake news is not a new concept, it’s
just that in the digitalized world they can reach a far bigger audience and make a far greater
impact than before. It is an undeniable fact that digitalization has also driven globalization,
this has led to events and problems that would have otherwise stayed localized, reaching
world audiences and reach – out. (Tárcia, L. and Marinho, S. S. P., 2008)

Civil war, a fight for power and the end of the Roman Republic

After Julius Caesar’s death, The Roman republic went into a civil war. A struggle for
power emerged, and who would be the next ruler was the main question. The main players
were Octavian, who was Caesar’s adopted son, and Mark Anthony, one of the most trusted
commanders of Julius Caesar. In order to win, Octavian thought about spreading fake news
among Roman citizens eligible for voting, in order to bash Anthony’s public picture and make
him less wealthy in peoples eyes. He did this in a way that he put slogans on coins and put
them in circulation among Roman citizens. He also spread the fake news with poetry, which
was very popular amongst those eligible for voting. He falsely accused Anthony of being a
drunk, loyal to Cleopatra and all in all unfit for the job that was offered. In the end Octavian
won the elections, after which he put an end to the Roman republic and made himself emperor
for life. His mission was successful, and from then on, fake news has been a part of every
election. From this situation we can see that the reach of the fake news was only among Roman
citizens eligible for voting, the means of spreading the news were unique to the time being and
would probably not work today in the digitalized world we live in. (Watson, C., 2018)

2016 US presidential elections

Taking into consideration that the US is considered the worlds most powerful country,
it is no surprise that their elections will reach such a global audience. Not only does the US
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play a major role into shaping geopolitics across the world, but it is also the world leading
economy. In addition to that, the 2016 elections saw the United States first female candidate,
Hillary Clinton, on one side and Donald Trump, a businessman with very strong and
controversial opinions. (Wallenfeldt, J.) Media coverage of the elections reached a previously
unseen numbers of news articles, interviews and activity in the journalist world. The whole
world was not only watching but had an opinion on the election as well. The situation inspired
teenagers across the pond, in a small city in the tiny country of Macedonia, to cash in on the
newly emerged situation. Over a 150 IP addresses of websites generating fake news about the
election were traced down to the small city of Veles in central Macedonia. In this previously
industrial city, the average monthly salary at the time of the election was only 350 euros.
Teenagers with high IT knowledge, used the controversial figure of Donald Trump to generate
fake news targeted towards Trump supporters. The business model was a success and quickly
there were people making well over 10000 dollars in google ad revenue from their websites.
They designed their websites to look like the ones from trusted, major media outlets, and
created catchy “ clickbait“ titles that lured the audience onto their sites. (Jane – Kirby, E., 2016)
One study found out that almost 62 percent of Americans get their news from social media, 40
percent of which via Facebook. (Ksherti, N. and Voas, J., 2017) The problem became so huge,
that in the three months following up to the election, fake news on Facebook reached more
audience than the news from the 20 biggest media outlets in the US. (Hughes, H. and Waismel
– Manor, I., 2021) Hillary Clinton ended up mentioning the fake news that Macedonia was
generating in an interview, while clubs in Veles started organizing parties on google paycheck
day. Donald Trump ended up winning the election, and fake news helped him get to the victory.

Summary

In conclusion fake news have existed and will continue existing and shaping major
events in the future. We can easily make a coloration between Octavians slogans on the coins
and modern-day tweets, or his poetry and today’s news articles. Previously people used to sit
in front of the TV or read a newspaper in order to get their information on major events. But
media convergence and digitalization have made the mobile – phone inseperable part of our
lives and almost like an addition to our bodies. We got used to getting our news immediately
and only with a few touches of our phone screens. This allowed the fall of media houses,
targeting a large anonymous audience, and saw the emergence of more and more independent
journalists targeting to individual groups. (Beers, D., 2006) In our case, those independent
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journalists targeted Trump supporters, creating catchy fake news with clickbait titles in order
to generate an income for themselves. Unlike the political nature of the fake news in the Roman
Republic, this fake news had an economical nature, and did not intend to have such a major
impact as they ended up having. Through this we can see one of the dark sides of digitalization.
Although it has connected the world like never before and made everything we need at the
reach of our fingertips, it has undeniably created the major influx of fake news. It is easier than
ever to reach a global audience and interfere in other countries political spheres with or without
intention. It was unimaginable just a decade ago that a single person, or a group of people,
could have such a major impact on something as big as US election. After the fake news
outbreak of 2016, the social media platform Twitter implemented a fact checker on their
platform, making it harder for fake news to spread. Our access to the internet has proven to be
a powerful tool if used correctly, and as the world gets more globalized with the help of
digitalization, the global impact that everyone of us has, has become more prominent than ever.

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