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When Fact-Checking and ‘BBC Standards’ Are Helpless: ‘Fake Newsworthy Event’ Manipulation and the Reaction of the ‘High-Quality Media’ on It

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  • Artem Zakharchenko

    (Institute of Journalism, Taras Shevchenko National University of Kyiv, 02000 Kyiv, Ukraine)

  • Tomáš Peráček

    (Department of Information Systems, Faculty of Management, Comenius University in Bratislava, 820 05 Bratislava, Slovakia)

  • Solomiia Fedushko

    (Department of Social Communication and Information Activities, Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Lviv Polytechnic National University, 79007 Lviv, Ukraine)

  • Yuriy Syerov

    (Department of Social Communication and Information Activities, Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Lviv Polytechnic National University, 79007 Lviv, Ukraine)

  • Olha Trach

    (Department of Social Communication and Information Activities, Institute of the Humanities and Social Sciences, Lviv Polytechnic National University, 79007 Lviv, Ukraine)

Abstract

Fact-checking and journalists professional standards usually are considered to be the best fail-safe against manipulations in media. However, we found that newsmakers are able to manipulate even the audience of so-called ‘high-quality media’ who practice all mentioned approaches. To prove this we have refined the concept of ‘pseudo-event’, introduced by D.J. Boorstin, by defining the term ‘fake newsworthy event’ as an event created by newsmakers, that is high-profile and attractive for media, but the only or particular aim of these actions is an agenda-setting, and this aim is not obvious from the origin of the action. Namely, the member of parliament may file some bill realizing that it cannot be adopted and trying just to shape the public opinion. Or some person may claim against a celebrity or businessman having no chance to win at trial. On the example of Ukrainian ‘high-quality media’ we showed that journalists usually do not take into account whether some topics are launched just for manipulating agenda-setting. To prove that we gathered the data about publications focused on such topics in Ukrainian ‘high-quality media’, we provided their discourse analysis, and compared the result with experts’ evaluations of ‘media quality’ and ‘artificiality rate’ of the topic. We have not found correlations between ‘artificiality’ of the topic and the number of publications. Recommendations were elaborated for the media workers if they want to avoid this type of manipulation.

Suggested Citation

  • Artem Zakharchenko & Tomáš Peráček & Solomiia Fedushko & Yuriy Syerov & Olha Trach, 2021. "When Fact-Checking and ‘BBC Standards’ Are Helpless: ‘Fake Newsworthy Event’ Manipulation and the Reaction of the ‘High-Quality Media’ on It," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(2), pages 1-13, January.
  • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:13:y:2021:i:2:p:573-:d:477405
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Leonid Peisakhin & Arturas Rozenas, 2018. "Electoral Effects of Biased Media: Russian Television in Ukraine," American Journal of Political Science, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 62(3), pages 535-550, July.
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    3. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow, 2017. "Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 31(2), pages 211-236, Spring.
    4. Hunt Allcott & Matthew Gentzkow & Chuan Yu, 2019. "Trends in the Diffusion of Misinformation on Social Media," NBER Working Papers 25500, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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