Conspiracies, hoaxes and satire

Dr. Rachel Mourao

Reminders
Four weekly diaries

Ethnography paper due Nov. 16

Quick recap
Move beyond misinformation and towards understanding different
interpretive frameworks, which can all be technically correct

Exercise

Compared the coverage of the front page of four sites from different
alignments (ShareBlue, Bipartisan Report, Breitbart and Washington
Examiner)

Same stories, different perspectives  media literacy is about

identifying these perspectives
Data highlights
Highly shared content is not Pro-Trump: not a single piece of pro-Trump
content cracked the top 50 most shared stories from non-mainstream
sites

Instead, it is anti-establishment: anti-Clinton, anti-Obama, anti-Trump

Negative feelings drive traffic

How does this relate to media literacy?
Emotional check:

"If you are a newsreader or someone who likes reading news but you
don't know immediately what may or may not be fake, ask yourself by
reading the headline, what emotions do I feel? Am I really angry,
scared, frustrated, do I want to share this to tell everybody what's
going on? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then check
your sources.“

- Binkowski
Today
Define conspiracy theory and hoax

Be familiar with history and famous cases

Why should we care?

Megyn Kelly Reports on Alex Jones and 'Infowars': 2:40
Are sites like Infowars and Patribotics conspiracy
theory sites? Hoax? Neither? Both?

Alex Jones Report: 25+ Killed In Texas Church Massacre

It depends!
Conspiracy theory
A theory that explains an event or set of circumstances as the result of
a secret plot by usually powerful conspirators

Examples
Alien activity at Roswell, reptilian elite, Illuminati, New World Order,
09/11 was an inside job, Russian report, Paul McCartney is dead, etc.
From Reddit forum definition
Conspiracy - a secret plan by a group to do something unlawful or harmful
Theory - a supposition or a system of ideas intended to explain something
Conspiracy Theory - a hypothesis that some covert but influential
organization is responsible for a circumstance or event

“This is a forum for free thinking and discussing issues which have captured
the public’s imagination. Please respect other views and opinions, and keep
an open mind. Our goals are a fairer, more transparent world and a better
future for everyone”
Why we believe them?
“People who have lost an election, money or influence look for
something to explain that loss.” - Joseph Uscinski, associate professor
at the University of Miami and co-author of book American Conspiracy
Theories.

“In this case, conspiracy theories can be like emotional poultices. You
don’t want to blame yourself for things you may lack, so you blame
anonymous forces instead” - Joseph Parent, a professor of political
science at Notre Dame University
Not only about politics
In fact, popular theories are NOT political and definitely NOT new

Paul McCartney is dead

Conspiracies don’t have leaning
Republicans were just as likely to believe that President Obama was
born abroad as Democrats were likely to believe that 9/11 was an
inside job (Nyham, 2010)

Fueled by frustration and community-building:

The rise of the liberal conspiracy theorists
Hoaxes
Falsehoods deliberately created to deceive

How is that different from conspiracy theory?

By definition, conspiracy theorists believe in the story, similar to rumors

and urban legends

Hoaxes are often created as a practical joke, to cause embarrassment,

or to provoke social or political change by raising people's awareness of
something  but the line can be blurred
Famous conspiracies
• The JFK Assassination
• 9/11 Cover-Up
• Area 51 and the Aliens
• Paul Is Dead
• Secret Societies Control the World
• The Moon Landings Were Faked
• Jesus and Mary Magdalene
• Holocaust Revisionism
• The CIA and AIDS
• The Reptilian Elite

• Source (Time magazine)

Famous hoaxes
Alien autopsy (1995): a 17-minute black and white film
depicting a medical examination or autopsy. Staged to raise
awareness to a video the author claimed to have watched in
the past

Fiji mermaid (1884): mummified creature

Work of an Indonesian craftsman using papier-mâché and

materials from exotic fish, or the tail of a fish and a torso of a
baby orangutan, stitched together with the head of a monkey
Is Infowars a conspiracy theory site? Hoax?
Neither?

Alex Jones Report: 25+ Killed In Texas Church Massacre

Conspiracy: By definition, creators believe in the story

Hoaxes: Falsehoods deliberately created to deceive
Hoaxes and conspiracies

Is this a problem at all? Could it be?

Next class
Fake news as satire: The Daily Show, Colbert Report and John Oliver

The real fake news

The very first Daily Show episode
Why “the real fake news?”
In 2007, Jon Stewart was listed as one of America’s most admired
journalists (Pew, 2008).

Are Americans confused? How is the show similar to, and different
from, what people get from the mainstream press?

Fake news in the sense that it mimics real news, but it is not (but never
claimed to be)

How is it different from our current “fake news?”

The real fake news: a video from 2004
Is John Oliver's Show Journalism? He Says The Answer Is Simple: 'No'
Listen·7:26

John Oliver: “Everything we do is in the name of comedy”

Jon Stewart: ”Most trusted name in fake news”
Science says…
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, with the huge success of “fake news” shows, researchers have assessed their
effects on people’s political behavior. Some key findings:

1. Watching parody shows was associated with higher levels of political knowledge (Pew, 2007)

2. 2000 presidential campaign: late-night comedy shows had a strong effect on the way audiences evaluated
the candidates (Moy, Xenos & Hess, 2003)

3. The Daily Show, increases political interest and motivate viewers to seek out traditional sources of
information (Feldman & Young, 2008; Baum, 2003)

4. Watching The Daily Show is positively associated with higher levels of political cynicism and more negative
views of political institutions (Baumgartner and Morris, 2006)

5. The Daily Show associated with cynicism, superficiality, and excessive partisanship (Hart, 2013)
The Onion
Fake news?
Nature of the content: does it have misinformation?

Nature of producer: does it have an intention to deceive?

Something else? Potential?

How Russia Is Dividing America with Real "Fake News": The Daily Show
Fake News in the Bush Era: an old Daily Show video