Aging represents the most significant prerequisite to be influenced by disinformation or fraudulent media messages on the internet. The elderly are a group that consumes these messages and also spreads them most often. With the gradual aging of the population and enlargement of the elderly group, the society-wide problem further escalates. The topic of the diploma thesis is focused on the issues of fake news and the spread of disinformation online within the elderly group aged 65 and more years. The thesis aims to describe in detail the aspects on which the elderly evaluate the credibility of news and which signs of fake news they are able to identify. The theoretical section defines the fundamental terms relevant to fake news and describes the state of media literacy of the Czech elderly in the context of current research. In the practical section, a qualitative study is conducted in the form of semi structured interviews with the elderly to answer the research questions.

Unter den Anglizismen des Jahres 2016 schaffte es „Fake News“ noch vor den zweit- und drittplatzierten Wörtern „Dark Net“ und „Hate Speech“ zum Publikumsliebling und wurde auch von der Jury der „Aktion Anglizismen des Jahres“ 2016 auf den ersten Platz gewählt (http://www.anglizismusdesjahres.de). In seiner Laudatio weist Anatol Stefanowitsch darauf hin, dass das Wort Fake News schon im 19. Jahrhundert in ähnlicher Bedeutung wie heute verwendet wurde im Sinne einer frei erfundenen Nachricht, die politische Gegner ungünstig darstellt und von den Lesern – ist hier noch nicht die Rede – positiv aufgenommen wird, weil sie deren Weltbild bestätigt. Die früheste Verwendung datiert er auf 1894 in der Zeitschrift American Historical Register [... aus dem Editorial]

Unter den Anglizismen des Jahres 2016 schaffte es „Fake News“ noch vor den zweit- und drittplatzierten Wörtern „Dark Net“ und „Hate Speech“ zum Publikumsliebling und wurde auch von der Jury der „Aktion Anglizismen des Jahres“ 2016 auf den ersten Platz gewählt (http://www.anglizismusdesjahres.de). In seiner Lauda-tio weist Anatol Stefanowitsch darauf hin , dass das Wort Fake News schon im 19. Jahrhundert in ähnlicher Bedeutung wie heute verwendet wurde im Sinne einer frei erfundenen Nachricht, die politische Gegner ungünstig darstellt und von den Lesern – ist hier noch nicht die Rede – positiv aufgenommen wird, weil sie deren Weltbild bestätigt. Die früheste Verwendung datiert er auf 1894 in der Zeitschrift American Historical Register.

»Fake News« hat sich in den vergangenen Jahren als Kampfbegriff in den deutschen Printmedien etabliert. Aus medienpädagogischer Sicht steht dabei im Fokus, mit Begriffen wie diesem kundig und kritisch umgehen zu können. Mit Hilfe einer theoretischen Grundierung zum Thema »Wahrheit« mit Fokus auf die postmodernen Deutungen u. a. des französischen Philosophen Michel Foucault sowie dem Versuch einer griffigen Definition von »Fake News«, wird die Verwendung des Begriffs in der ZEIT und der Frankfurter Allgemeinen Zeitung im Jahr 2018 im Rahmen einer Diskursanalyse nach dem Modell Siegfried Jägers untersucht und die gesellschaftlichen Folgen thematisiert.

Fake news, misinformation och desinformation är begrepp som synts i den allmänna debatten de senaste åren och har använts i såväl politiska sammanhang för att påverka opinion liksom för ekonomiska syften. En särskilt central aktör i spridningen av sådan information är även sociala medier. I kampen mot fake news, misinformation och desinformation utvecklas olika lösningar för att göra det enklare för användare att urskilja sant från falskt. Tidigare forskning påvisar emellertid kontraproduktiva effekter utav flera av de sätt som vilseledande information idag motarbetas på. Ett mer tillförlitligt sätt är därför att främja människors egna psykologiska försvar och därför underbygga den källkritiska förmågan. Källkritik hos människor har också tidigare undersökts, men främst utefter människors förmåga. Föreliggande studies syfte var därför att istället undersöka sociala medieanvändares upplevelser av ett källkritiskt förhållningssätt. För att besvara studiens frågeställningar genomfördes 9 semistrukturerade intervjuer med sociala medieanvändare. Datan analyserades därefter utifrån studiens teoretiska ramverk Theory of planner behavior (TPB), varpå deltagarnas attityder, subjektiva normer, upplevda egna förmåga och intentioner skulle ge en förklaring för de befintliga beteenden som uppvisades. Resultaten visar bland annat att deltagarna besitter en god förståelse för hur källkritik bör tillämpas men att tillvägagångssättet uppfattas som kognitivt belastande och tidskrävande vilket i förlängningen gör att förfarandet främst uppges ske när information anses vara viktig. Framtida lösningar bör således sänka resurströskeln utan att för den delen kompromissa användares analytiska förmåga. / Fake news, Misinformation and disinformation are terms that have been prevalent in the public debate in recent years and have been used in political contexts to influence political opinion as well as for economical purposes. A particularly central actor in the dissemination of such information is social media. To combat fake news, misinformation and disinformation, certain solutions are developed to make it easier for users to distinguish true from false. However, previous research showscounterproductive effects in many of the ways that deceptive information is being fought today. A more reliable way is therefore to promote people's psychological defence and instead underpin critical skills in evaluation of sources. People's ability to critically evaluate the reliability of sources have also been a subject for research, although mainly focused on people's capabilities. The present studies aim was therefore instead to explore social media users' subjective experiences of practicing source evaluation. To answer the studies research questions, 9 semi-structured interviews were conducted with social media users. The data was then analysed with the help of the studies theoretical framework Theory of planned behaviour (TPB), from which the participants' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behaviouralcontrol and intentions would explain the existing behaviours. Inter alia, the results show that the participants have a good knowledge of how sources should be evaluated although the behaviour is viewed as cognitively cumbersome and time consuming which in the long run purports the behaviour to mainly happen when the information is viewed as important. Future solutions should therefore lower the resource requirements without compromising the users’ analytical capabilities.

Der Begriff des »Fake« meint eine mimetische Nachahmung eines anderen Kunstwerks, die im Gegensatz zur Fälschung selbst auf ihren gefälschten Charakter hinweist. Eine Künstlerin reproduzierte Fotografien von Walker Evans; diese eigenen Fotografien präsentierte sie auf ähnliche Weise wie das Vorbild; der Titel, »Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans«, weist die Arbeit als Aneignung aus, die die gewandelten kontextuellen und konzeptuellen Bedingungen des identischen Bilds reflektiert. Das Fake zielt demnach mittels einer genauen Bilduntersuchung auf einen kunsthistorischen Erkenntnisprozeß: Die Reproduktion wird nicht mehr moralisch als Fälschung verurteilt, sondern das Fake wird als Kritik der Institution der Kunst und ihrer Ideologie des Originals betrachtet. Das erste Kapitel widmet sich den neuen künstlerischen Strategien zu Anfang der 1970er Jahre und diskursanalytisch der historischen Fälschungsliteratur, dem Verhältnis von Original und Fälschung, um in Abgrenzung davon den Begriff »Fake« einzuführen. Im zweiten Kapitel werden sieben ausgewählte Beispiele von Fakes auf ihre konzeptuelle Formation hin untersucht. Im letzten Kapitel werden die weitreichenden Konsequenzen dargelegt, die das Fake für die Bild- und Kunsttheorie im Verhältnis zu gesellschaftlichen Entwicklungen bedeutet. / The concept of Fake describes a mimetic imitation of another work of art which, in contrast to forgery, hints at its faked nature. A female artist reproduced photographs by Walker Evans and presented these photographs like the original; the title, "Sherrie Levine After Walker Evans" identifies the work as an appropriation which reflects the contextually and conceptually changed conditions of the identical image. Accordingly, the fake aims at an art historical cognitive process by means of an exact examination of the respective artwork: The reproduction is no longer morally condemned as forgery, but the fake is regarded as criticism of the institution of art and its ideology of the orginal. The first chapter deals with the new artistic strategies at the beginning of the 1970s and, in a discursive analysis, the historical literature of Fake as well as with the relation of orginal and forgery in distinction to the concept of "Fake". In the second chapter seven examples of Fake are examined for their conceptual formation. The third and last chapter is a description of the far reaching consequences of Fake for image and art theory in relation to social developments.

Examining periodicals and novels from 1847 to 1886, I analyze the feminine fake to argue that individuals were beginning during this period to grapple with the discomforting idea that identity, especially gender, might be a social construct. Previously, scholars have contended that this ideological shift did not occur until the 1890s. I apply the term "feminine fake" to the tools that women use to falsify their identities and to the women who counterfeit their identities. Equally, I consider the fake as a theatrical moment of falsifying one's identity. In my first chapter, I set up my theoretical framework, which draws from Laqueur's writings on the cultural history of sex and gender, Poovey's work on the "uneven development" of gender ideology, and Baudrillard and Eco's respective concepts of the simulacra and the hyperreal. Chapter II examines issues of The Englishwoman's Domestic Magazine and La Mode illustrée to analyze the feminine fake during the period surrounding the Franco-Prussian War. Using Fraser, Green, and Johnston's writing on the periodical alongside Hiner's theories of the ideological work of the accessory, I argue that the women's magazine, particularly via the "rhetoric of the fake" therein, fashion, and the accessory were crucial sites for the construction of gender at the time. Chapter III looks at performance and the feminine fake in Vanity Fair and La Curée. I re-evaluate Voskuil's theories of "acting naturally" to analyze the charades and tableaux vivants within the novels and illustrate how these performances metaphorically function as society's failed efforts to render feminine identities legible. In Chapter IV, I analyze Lady Audley's Secret and L'Eve future, situating Lady Audley and the android as hyperfeminine, or marked by an identificatory excess rendering them more feminine than any real woman. The threat they pose to legible feminine and human identity drives the need to control their unmanageable identities: at the ends of the novels, the women, along with what I characterize as their inhuman fakery, are irreversibly contained. / text

Stockholm den 7 april 2017, klockan 14:59: rapporter om en lastbil som körde på människor längs Drottninggatan i centrala Stockholm, nådde allmänheten. Det konstaterades snabbt vara en terrorattack. Kort efter attacken började uppgifter om skottlossning på olika platser runt Stockholm att spridas. Ryktena cirkulerade i drygt en timme innan polisen kunde dementera dem, efter att ha avsatt resurser för att undersöka de påstådda skjutningarna. Skottlossning hade aldrig inträffat.             Studiens syfte var att undersöka retoriska dimensioner och persuasiva funktioner hos fake news samt vilka konsekvenser fake news kan få vid en krissituation. Visuell retorisk analys var den metodologiska utgångspunkten som, genom en abduktiv forskningsstrategi, kombinerades med teoretiska perspektiv för kris, ethos, vividness och fake news. Analysmaterialet utgjordes av fyra nyhetsutdrag: SvT Nyheter, Dagens Nyheter (2 st.) och Expressen var källorna bakom dessa.             Analysen visade att nyheterna om skottlossning mottogs som visuella intryck, som i kombination med starka ethos och högt förtroende för nyhetskällorna, utgjorde trovärdiga nyheter som allmänheten accepterade som sanna. Därtill konkluderades att fake news kan förstås som mentala bilder. / Stockholm, 7th of April 2017, 2:59 pm, reports said a lorry had hit several people along the pedestrian street Drottninggatan in the city centre, which was quickly labelled a terrorist attack. Shortly afterwards, news flashes warned people of alleged open gunfire observed at several other spots in the city. The rumours circulated for over one hour before the Police were able to refute them, after firstly having investigated the claims themselves. There had been no shootings.          The purpose of this study was to explore the rhetorical dimensions and persuasive functions of fake news and which consequences these can lead to in a crisis. Visual rhetorical analysis has been the methodological approach which, through an abductive research strategy, was combined with the theoretical perspectives of crisis, ethos, vividness and fake news. The material analysed consisted of four news excerpts: SvT Nyheter, Dagens Nyheter (2) and Expressen.             The analysis showed that the news of the alleged gunfire were perceived as visual impressions which, in combination with strong ethos and high trust for the source of news, were deemed as credible and therefore true by the readers. In addition, it was concluded that fake news can be understood as mental pictures.

As so called fake news spread widely on the internet it is important to examine how they are spread, and thereby, how much of a problem they are. This thesis investigates how the spread of news articles on Twitter can be represented via a tree structure, as well as whether or not the trees have patterns that correlate to attributes such as the source of the shared news article and how many followers the original tweeter has. As part of the study a tool was built in Python 2.7 that, amongst other things, allows tracking and reconstruction of a news article's propagation on Twitter.It could be concluded that most links that are shared on Twitter propagate over a period of a few days and most retweets are made within the first twelve hours. We observe patterns suggesting that having more followers correlates to getting more retweets. Users who have few followers have to rely on their tweets being retweeted in a longer chain of users for it to reach a larger audience. Tweets that have a substantial spread often spread widely, but not especially deep. Finally, our results suggest that both the news site that created the article and the content of the article has an impact on how much it is retweeted.

Fake news har fått ett starkt fäste i sociala medier och är ett växande problem – för individen såväl som för samhället. Grundläggande teorier om beslutsfattande, samarbete, kommunikation och marknader bygger alla på en bärande idé om att information är sann, precis och samvetsgrann. Det finns starka både ideologiska och ekonomiska motiv bakom spridningen av felaktiga fakta, falska berättelser, lögner och konspirationsteorier. Det råder en uttalad oro över effekten på politiska val och den demokratiska utvecklingen, men också farhågor om andra potentiella negativa konsekvenser, från ökande cynism och apati till hetsande extremism. Åtgärder för att minska utbredningen diskuteras, i litteraturen framträder fyra olika huvudformer: statliga interventioner, självpåtagna begränsningar/plattformspolicys, teknologiska lösningar och utbildning i källkritik. Civilsamhällets roll i begränsningen av spridningen är, såvitt kunnat överblickas, tidigare inte studerad. Denna explorativa studie syftar till att öka kännedomen om det svenska civilsamhällets mobilisering mot fake news. De aktörer som identifierats i studien är för civilsamhället karaktäristiska frivilligorganisationer som dels agerat självständigt, dels i samarbete med offentlig sektor och/eller näringslivet. Samtliga aktörer har haft mobiliseringen mot fake news som en biuppgift, det vill säga det har inte varit deras enda eller deras huvuduppgift. I studien har fem huvudstrategier framträtt i mobiliseringen mot fake news: grundläggande utbildning och undervisning, allmänbildande kompetenshöjning, understödjande, skapa debatt och påverkansarbete. Angreppssättet har varit kvalitativ innehållsanalys. / Fake news has gained a strong foothold in social media and is a growing problem - for the individual as well as for the whole society. Basic theories of decision making, cooperation, communication and markets are all based on the idea that information is true, accurate and conscientious. There are strong both ideological and economic motives behind the spread of false facts, false stories, lies and conspiracy theories. There is a deep concern about the effect this may have on political elections and democratic developments, but also concerns about other potential negative consequences, from increasing cynicism and apathy to instigative extremism. Measures to reduce dissemination are discussed and the literature shows four different main forms: government intervention, self-imposed measures/platform policies, technology solutions and source criticism training. The role of civil society in limiting the spread is, as far as it could be established by the author, not studied previously. This exploratory study aims to raise awareness about the Swedish civil society's mobilization against fake news. The actors identified in the study are civil society voluntary organizations who acted independently, or in cooperation with the public sector and/or business sector. All actors have mobilized against fake news as a secondary task, that is, it has not been their sole or their main task. In the study, five main strategies have emerged in the mobilization: basic education and training, general education enhancement, supporting, creating debate and impact work. The methodological approach in this study has been qualitative content analysis.