The Rise of Fake News and Political Parodies in the Post-Truth West

In the era of fake news, much has been written on and said about the blurring lines between truth and falsity, fact and fiction. The rise of fake news, fabricated news articles whose purpose is to deceive and fool, and the extent to which fake news has impacted our political reality, is worrying. Many question why? How did we get into a world of “post-truth”, a world where emotions and prejudice exceed facts. However, in this article, I plan to examine the mainstream news, fake news and political parodies as completing forms of conveyers of “truth”. I will use Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman’s infamous Propaganda Model to question the authenticity of mainstream news and will move on to explore how fake news operates. I will then contemplate how political parody shows and websites act as a critique of the news and will end the article with a consideration of what cultural vehicles we can use to convey a sense of truth in the post-truth Western world.

Chomsky is an American social critic, academic, historian, analytic philosopher, and cognitive scientist. He is also an activist against the War on Terror, is actively pro-Palestine, a supporter of the Occupy Movement and is an avid defender of free speech. Herman was an American economist and media analyst who was also actively political throughout his life. He, with Chomsky, challenged the way that the American media represented the Vietnam War and the media’s treatment of post-war Indochina, Cambodia in the 1970’s. Herman, with David Peterson, wrote The Politics of Genocide (2010), which investigates the media’s representation of what genocide constitutes in relation to Western military agendas. Thus, politics and the media are a massive area of concern for both Herman and Chomsky. Both these political academics collaborated on Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media (1988) which is a seminal text exploring the way mass media distributes the agendas of society’s elites whilst censoring undesirable information. Herman and Chomsky devised a Propaganda Model to explain how mass media is influenced and controlled to force these agendas.

The first propaganda filter of the media is ‘Size, Ownership, and Profit Orientation of the Mass Media’ which focuses on the big companies which control media distribution. The first filter describes how media distributors are profit oriented and how media depends on the government for general policy supports. Mass media are supported by big advertisers, not paying subscribers, and what the media chooses to report on is influenced by rich and powerful sources. Companies which distribute news often monopolise on both newspapers, television and radio, meaning it is just a mere few companies who control most of the mass media we consume. The end of the description of the first filter summarises thus: ‘the dominant media firms are quite large businesses; they are controlled by very wealthy people or by managers who are subject to sharp constraints by owners and other market-profit-oriented forces; and they are closely interlocked, and have important common interests, with other major corporations, banks, and government’ (page 14 of Manufacturing Consent). Thus, the first filter describes how it is the elite who fund and control the mass media.

The second filter is ‘The Advertising License to do Business’. This describes how advertising controls mass media as ‘an advertising-based system will tend to drive out of existence or into marginality the media companies and types that depend on revenue from sales alone. With advertising, the free market does not yield a neutral system in which final buyer choice decides. The advertisers’ choice influence media prosperity and survival’ (page 14 of Manufacturing Consent). Thus, what advertisers want from the media, they get. So, who do advertisers want to attract? They want ‘audiences with buying power’ (page 16 of Manufacturing Consent). This leads mass media to direct its interests towards the elite of society, which means working-class interests are disregarded and radical media is not supported. Conservative views, therefore, are encouraged, whilst information that is critical of mainstream ideals are discouraged.

The third filter is ‘Sourcing Mass-Media News’. Sources for news, or the raw material, is vital for news programs to function. But, where to get the sources? News reporters must be close to places where news-worthy stories occur, such as where press conferences are held, city hall, police departments etc. Business corporations are additionally a good source for news, as ‘only bureaucracies can satisfy the input needs of a news bureaucracy’ (quote from Mark Fishman on page 19 of Manufacturing Consent). Essentially, “official people” should know what “officially” is going on. They are also thought of as “objective”, but, taking information from bureaucracies will also avoid the threat of libel suits, and additionally, taking information from such credible sources reduces investigative costs as there is no need to fact check or conduct costly research. Thus, it is most often official government and bureaucracies that provide material for the news. Additionally, such officials make it easy for the news to use their source before others: ‘they provide the media organizations with facilities in which to gather; they give journalists advance copies of speeches and forthcoming reports; they schedule press conferences at hours well geared to news deadlines; they write press releases in usable language; and they carefully organize their press conferences and “photo opportunity” sessions’ (page 22 of Manufacturing Consent). This provides even more ways that large and powerful bureaucracies “subsidise” the news and ensure their contributions are the contributions used most widely. Any official “expert” used in the news are often government consultants whose research is funded by such large bureaucracies. Therefore, all bias will be in favour of the dominant elite.

The fourth filter is ‘Flak and the Enforcers’. “Flak” describes ‘negative responses to a media statement or program’ (page 26 of Manufacturing Consent). The ability to produce flak ‘is related to power’ (page 26 of Manufacturing Consent) and can be perpetrated by such bureaucracies and government that controls the media. Flak enforcers will threaten and correct the media to ensure any deviations from their interests cannot occur. Any deviations are downplayed, de-legitimised and discredited. The current US President, Donald Trump, often tries to use flak to discredit the media. He often calls news reports which criticise him “fake news” in an attempt to discredit the source. He then will tell press conferences what “really happened”, often with little to no proof to back up his version of events. However, this ability to discredit the media is linked to his power and influence.

Finally, the fifth filter is the ‘Anticommunism as a Control Mechanism’ filter. This anti-communist ideology was popular during and after the Cold War, yet this fifth filter still applies in the context of the War on Terror, War on Drugs, and even more so in the Donald Trump presidency, anti-immigrant ideology. This filter is about the common enemy against Americans and becomes a justification for any means to stop that enemy. Herman and Chomsky note that ‘liberals at home, often accused of being pro-Communist or insufficiently anti-Communist, are kept continuously on the defensive in a cultural milieu in which anticommunism is the dominant religion’ (page 29 of Manufacturing Consent). This fifth filter is where post-truth works effectively, as any critique of that fear turns the critic into part of that fear. Fear of the enemy is number one; real facts about the potential threat is disregarded. Post-truth requires no real facts and is a place where ‘charlatans can thrive as evidential sources’ (page 30 of Manufacturing Consent).

Together, these filters create the Propaganda Model which enforces the ideals and pursuits of the dominant elite onto the mass media. In Manufacturing Consent, other aspects of media are discussed, such as worthy and unworthy victims. Worthy victims are victims of the enemy, and unworthy victims are always the enemy when they are attacked. Note that there will be high media coverage of attacks of ISIS in Europe, whereas ISIS attacks in Syria or Iraq will receive much less coverage, despite the fatalities being much higher in those countries where ISIS is more prevalent. This is due to the favoured image of the Middle East not as victims of violence, but the perpetrators of violence, which justifies the continued War on Terror and the harsh immigration laws in the US. Altogether, the Propaganda Model exposes the ways that the news is not a neutral distribution of facts, but a conveyer belt of elitist ideology.

The Propaganda Model was published before the dawn of the internet, and with the growth of social media and the new ways that the news is distributed, the focus of news distributors must be affected. Whilst it seems that the internet would make distribution of independent news more accessible, recent studies about social media algorithms reveal that what users see online have been highly marketed for them using the user’s data. Social media has not widened our available media, it has restricted it more. This is not to diminish the political achievements made by social media in regards to its role in the Arab Spring, as one example, but, distribution of media is now more filtered than ever. Astra Taylor’s book The People’s Platform: Taking back Power and Culture in the Digital Age (2014) describes the ways that ‘highly detailed dossiers’ are compiled on users by social media platforms, or search engine websites, that corporations can buy and use. And as we now know, the Cambridge Analytica scandal has taught us how much data is used to influence political campaigns as well as product marketing. The company illegally used data on Facebook ‘to target [users] with personalised political advertisements’. What we see online is highly filtered, chosen and marketed to us. And to make matters worse, not only are we marketed specific news stories by news media corporations whose choices on what constitutes as newsworthy have been influenced by politics and bureaucracy, thrown into the mix are “click-bate” websites and fake news. Click-bate websites are designed to have catchy slogans and titles with the intention for you to click on to it, providing money for that website through advertising. Fake news is described as ‘made-up news, manipulated to look like credible journalistic reports that are designed to deceive us. Once uploaded, fake news is easily spread through social media to large numbers of people who are willing to believe and share the fictional material’ (page 180). Fake news started to become a major problem in 2016 during the presidential election between Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton, when ‘several fake news reports outperformed news articles from respected media outlets’ (page 180). Whilst some fake news may be just badly informed reports, the most worrying fake news is that which intends to deceive, manipulate, and mislead. The spread of fake news most often used to encourage pre-existing beliefs and prejudices:

‘research has shown that these determinants [users’ interpersonal networks, algorithms, and users’ psychological motivations] tend to limit the flow across cross-cutting positions and contribute to the “echo chambers,” where information flows among like-minded users, and “filter bubbles,” where online content is controlled by algorithms reflecting users’ prior choices’ (page 104).

Thus, fake news is used to encourage other like-minded people to believe in untrue stories to fuel their beliefs.

Whilst at times it is easy to ask how people could believe such stories (see the link here for some of the most popular fake news headlines in the U.S), in such a political climate as there was during the 2016 U.S election, or Britain’s EU “Brexit” referendum which also saw a massive rise in fake news stories, entire nations were aggressively divided. In both cases, there were two clear sides; Clinton and the Democrats versus Trump and the Republicans or Leave versus Remain. Both sides were very invested and passionate about their side and would believe anything to discredit the opposition. Additionally, it has been noted that during the 2016 election, people were more likely and more willing to discuss the election with those they agreed with than those who they were against. That each side would share fake news to attempt to persuade and encourage belief in their political side, then, becomes more understandable. To add to the confusion and misinformation spread by fake news sites, official news broadcasters have also been known to be biased. For example, Fox News has taken a Republican stance to politics whilst MSNBC has taken a more Democratic one. These biases are no secret, as liberals mock Fox News whilst conservatives equally mock MSNBC. This feeling of mistrust towards official news sites further explains why people may be inclined to believe fake news.

However, what does this rise in fake news mean? Does it indicate the failures of official news to provide unbiased information? We might consider ‘Francesca Tripodi’s ethnographic research on mainstream American conservatives [which] engages directly with questions of partisanship and ideology. She argues that because conservatives consider the mainstream media to be “fake,” they turn to alternative media sources such as Breitbart and the video channel Prager U for information’ (page 493). If conservatives believe the mainstream media is biased, turning to alternative news may seem logical. Many right-leaning citizens may see themselves as the underdog, at the mercy of urban citizens who have different interests. Right-leaning citizens see pro-immigration, feminism and anti-racism movements as a threat, so media which sympathises with those views are a threat to them (see page 497). In fact, Alice E Marwick argues that conservatives see ‘the mainstream media [as] left-wing elites who wish to destroy traditional values, are corrupt and greedy’ (497). Warwick also found that:

‘centrists and left-leaning citizens were likely to get information from mainstream news sources like CNN and the New York Times, while right-leaning citizens were far more likely to consume a dense network of “hyper-partisan” sources like Breitbart and The Daily Caller. While these sources may not be fake news per se, the same study describes them as “combining decontextualized truths, repeated falsehoods, and leaps of logic to create fundamentally misleading view[s] of the world.”’ (pp. 491–492)

In such a divided political reality as the one in which the West lives in now, what is telling about this study is the fact that ‘ultimately, conservatives and liberals are not only consuming different media, but existing in different epistemological realities’ (pp. 493–494). It is suggested that the media that we consume can indicate our very sense of identity and community:

‘Peck explains how such outlets signify a social identity through the stories they cover, the entertainment media they highlight, and the marketing appeals they make to intellectuals, cosmopolitan business people, and hip urbanites. Thus, by believing stories in the New York Times or the Washington Post, cultural conservatives risk taking on the mantle of left-wing identity regardless of what those stories discuss’ (page 494).

This recalls filter two of the Propaganda Model, that advertising and the way media presents itself towards a specific market will influence the content. This creates a media identity, a community, which is applied to both conservatives and liberals.

An advert for The New York Times which highlights the importance of facts

The screenshot here shows the advertising used by The New York Times. They highlight the idea of facts and proof, whilst also relying on paying subscribers to fund the platform. The New York Times attract middle-class liberals and will appeal to that demographic. Reading The New York Times indicates you as part of a certain group, a moderately wealthy liberal, just like how conservative media also creates a sense of community:

‘Peck points out that partisanship is primarily driven not by any particular party position or platform, but by affinity for and similarity to one’s fellow party members. A great deal of research finds that partisanship is identity-based: people identify with the party that they feel that most members of their social group belong to, and will adjust their party preferences to match their family, friends, or neighborhoods [sic]. Just as the New York Times references eating Korean food, listening to Kendrick Lamar, and flying business class, Peck argues that Fox News uses a set of cultural referents like country music stars in their political rhetoric, which interpolates a particular class and race identity: namely, white, blue-collar, and masculine — a strategy that he calls cultural populism’ (page 494).

Marwick goes on to say that the way official news ‘contributes to partisanship […] fuels problematic information’ (page 495) just as fake news, through decontextualized stories geared towards gaining as much viewership as possible, also fuels ‘problematic information’. News broadcasters, on all sides of the political spectrum, cater to a certain demographic for economic benefit, whilst fake news sites may also be motivated by profit for web traffic. The reason for the rise in fake news is down to the failure of official news to be unbiased, yet, any alternative news is also going to be biased. But, these stories are made and shared by a community of like-minded people who want their views heard and justified, and fake news is just a new way to share those views.

Is there an alternative to way to consume news?

Political satire, parody television shows and websites offer themselves as an alternative to news broadcasters. Websites such as The Onion or comedy television shows like The Daily Show (1996-present) advertise themselves as the watchdogs of official news and as a critique of mainstream media. Whilst early parody shows such as Chevy Chase’s impersonations of the then-President Gerald Ford on Saturday Night Live (1975-present) took to merely making fun of political personalities, a motif in parody that continues today, contemporary parody shows are more likely to comment upon and critique political beliefs and policies. As Day and Thompson recount in their study, the difference between Chase’s Saturday Night Live in the 1970’ and 80’s, and Saturday Night Live in the 2000’s with Amy Poehler and Tina Fey was the increase in political critique in the contemporary version of the show. A turning point in the political impact of the show can be traced to the infamous 2008 sketch about Hilary Clinton and Sarah Palin, as ‘the skit became an immediate internet sensation and was rebroadcast and discussed on “real” news shows. The impression of Palin in particular resonated with audiences and Fey was pressed into service several more times, while the show’s election-focused skits moved to the forefront of popular cultural attention’ (page 178). Parody and satire have increased in popularity since the early SNL days, and notably, parody and satire not only comment on the news of the day but the way the news is packaged for consumption. For example, The Daily Show ‘deals largely in critical deconstruction of how TV news constructs the “true” and the “real.” Most recently, the Onion News Network meticulously reproduces the postmodern aesthetic of cable news, taking aim at its excesses and extravagance’ (page 179). The Onion reveals how the news is presented in a particular way to be consumed like entertainment media. Both The Onion and The Daily Show expose the fallibility of mainstream news and the way it shapes cultural consciousness. Though shows like The Daily Show and The Colbert Report (2005–2014) ‘do take pot-shots at individuals’, they also actually analyse and ‘dissect policy, breaking down the agenda behind political talking points, and pointing out where media coverage of a particular issue is lacking, often very clearly taking a position on the issue. More importantly, they imply that there can and should be alternatives to the problems they highlight, gesturing toward desired-for solutions rather than simple withdrawal’ (page 180). The Onion and The Daily Show both offer themselves as more than parody and takes an active approach to the news of the day. This kind of parody is arguably a constructive approach to political commentary, and perhaps a better “alternative” way to consume news. However, it is important to note that contemporary parody shows often market themselves more to the liberal demographic as American shows, for example, take a firm anti-Trump and anti-conservative stance. Whilst they do go to lengths to justify their political beliefs, often spending time pointing out the issues of the Trump presidency as an example, this still could be read as a “biased”. However, is it possible to have a political show which does not have a bias?

One contemporary parody show which tries not to enter its own voice but, rather, lets the material speak for itself is the recent series Who is America (2018) by Sacha Baron Cohen. The series is a kind of mockumentary/skit show which effortlessly exposes the reality of the people Cohen interviews. Cohen takes on a character and makes his subjects feel comfortable, that they are with their “own kind”, only to expose them to the world. Cohen embodies four characters in the show: Billy Wayne Rudderick, a far-right pseudo journalist; Dr. Nira Cain-N’Degeocello, an extreme liberal looking to “heal the divide”; Rick Sherman, a British ex-convict and Col. Erran Morad, an Israeli anti-terror expert. Through these characters, Cohen interviews art collectors, DJ’s, the former Vice President Dick Cheney, Senator Bernie Sanders, amongst other U.S. politicians and lesser-known citizens. He uses these characters to lure his subjects into a false sense of security often to expose their prejudices or just to see how far he can push them. Whilst it is all in the name of comedy, some of his interviews and skits have been outright controversial and career ruining. For example, Jason Chauncey Spencer, former Republican to the Georgia House of Representatives, in episode two, yelled a range of racist and homophobic remarks which caused him to resign. Cohen even convinced, not with any difficulty, Dick Cheney to sign a “waterboarding kit”. However, although Spencer resigned from the House of Representatives, the most shocking aspect of the show is the lack of actual shock caused by such blatantly shameful acts. I am not the first to note that ‘Cohen’s playing Gotcha! with people who have already confessed to far worse, over and over again’. In fact, Cohen often introduces his subjects by replaying segments from the news which displays why he has chosen to interview them. Before Spencer’s skit, we see several news clips about Spencer’s controversies and conservative views, including a bill to make covering one’s face (directed at Burqa’s) illegal.

See a clip here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4k4pMTsa1Kw

This then suggests why the Morad character is able to lure Spencer into believing that racist behaviour is socially acceptable. It also tells the audience that Spencer is likely to relay anti-Islamic sentiments similar to those already reported by the media. It is no shock, then, when he exposes the extent of his racism, and Cohen only has to say the word “Chinese” for Spencer to reel off racist remarks. This kind of expose happens throughout the show, yet, even though other interviewees are just as controversial as Spencer’s, we get the sense that no one is shocked anymore. In fact, the most shocking thing about the show is that no punitive action is likely to occur for interviewee’s who say and do offensive things. In one episode, the Morad character jokes to Gun Owners of America director Larry Pratt, that “It’s not rape if it’s your wife” and Pratt laughs heartily. Rolling Stone notes that:

‘Pratt won’t feel any repercussions for that, any more than any of Cohen’s other targets will, because everyone has already chosen sides and the people on their side won’t care. Who Is America? is Sacha Baron Cohen still playing by the rules of a world that made much more sense — and was much more conducive to this particular style of comedy — than the one of 2018’.

So, if the point of Cohen’s skits are not to shock, what is the point? It may simply be to point out that ‘you can’t shame a shameless person, and, from the look of it, that may be at the heart of what this series has sometimes humorously, but mostly dispiritingly uncovered’. That people have ‘already chosen sides’ gets to the heart of media partisanship in the West, especially in America. Cohen’s series certainly makes this point as no matter what he exposes on his series, it has already been said and done and those on that side are unlikely to change their mind, even when slapped in the face with it. Although this offers no real solution, it does provide a kind of clear and blunt mirror to hold up to America. In a post-truth West, the series uses emotional impact to highlight truths. Whilst this emotion may not be shock at what is being said, but more the shamelessness of the speaker and their supporters, this may be one of the only ways to communicate any sense of real truth in a world of post-truth and fake news.

To conclude, what form of news conveyance actually gives the consumer any sense of truth? We know that mainstream news is dictated by the wealthy elites and that the very essence of what is reported in the news in the first place is dictated by such elites. Thus, the dawn of media partisanship and fake news; the era of believing what suits your own and your peers' pre-existing prejudices and beliefs. Which news you consume, be it the New York Times or Breitbart, has everything to do with your sense of identity, your race, your class, where you live, your age, your politics, your beliefs and the beliefs of those around you. The news we consume becomes a social identifier, our sense of community, which causes media partisanship to become increasingly extreme. Fake news rises in times of tension as the need to prove our own believes, rather than prove facts, is linked to this sense of community in the spreading of such news. So, is parody and satire an alternative form of consuming news? Is it more truthful? Perhaps in high capitalism, the need to advertise and appeal to certain crowds will make it difficult to create a completely unbiased form of news. Parody and satire still need to sell to crowds in order for it to be successful, so in a sense, they still fall into the trap of the Propaganda Model. But, it is important that shows like The Daily Show try to actively approach the news and find solutions, whilst Who is America tries to show America its own prejudices and partisanship. Who is America also plays to a post-truth crowd who listen more to emotions than to facts, as it attempts to shock the viewers by holding up this mirror. Parody and satire may be an alternative to mainstream media, which, consumed with the knowledge that it is a parody and that it may be as biased as the mainstream news, can be a powerful tool for self-reflection.