Fake News are a frontal attack on the fourth estate in a democracy

The phenomenon is not specific to the Internet era: In 1898, the USA and Spain were on the brink of the Spanish-American war. In January of the same year, the battleship USS Main had arrived in the port of Havana. A few days later it sank after a devastating explosion in which 268 people lost their lives. The public mood in the USA had been heated up further, among others, by two competing publicists: William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. Hearst's instruction to his correspondent in Havana has been passed down: "You furnish the pictures. I'll furnish the war." [1] At the time, the press market was an extremely lucrative business and any means was fine in the fight for an increase in circulation. Possibly, the Spanish-American war would not have broken out if this bitter battle for market share had not taken place. These and similar excesses were the reason for various press codes. And it took decades for the press to build the confidence that a fourth power in a democracy needs. [2]

The rules of the game have changed

But now, the phenomenon is back. This time, it is not a greedy press that destroys social capital regardless of individual fates or social collateral damage. [2a] On the contrary. The fourth power itself is being pilloried and being accused of spreading lies. At the same time, "alternative facts" (Trump-consultant Kellyanne Conway) are distributed and shared millions of times in the social media. There, they have reached a part of the public that seems to be lost to the traditional media.

Apparently, the rules of the game have been changed without the democratic forces really noticing. Whether it's the Brexit, the election of Donald Trump or, most recently, the election of Bolsonaro in Brazil, the picture is always the same: a country with a strong prosperity gap and an already highly polarized public is further divided by huge amounts of false news that are deliberately distributed via the social media.

False news has a number of characteristic features in common which make for its high toxicity [3]:

• High emotionality: False messages have a high emotional potential. Long before reason has inquired whether it can be true the false news has already been shared.
• High popularity: When they reach us, false news have already been extensively shared (by bots) and commented upon. This suggests that there must be something to it and it makes it difficult to contradict. As social beings we react rather conformally.
• Hit the bogeyman: A position is built up that no one on the other side represents. This makes it easier to demonize the other side. Or it simply claims that the other side has an interest in the information being swept under the table.
• False dilemmas: The possibilities are narrowed down to two and they are also wrong. The opposing side is put under a false claim, its own claim is also unfounded.
• Personal attacks. Certain persons (groups) who have exposed themselves to the other side are covered with mockery and verbal attacks.

It is precisely through the highly emotional content of fake news that it is obviously possible to bring those to the ballot box who would not have gone to the polls otherwise. If necessary, you can achieve wafer-thin majorities thereby. Silke Jäger has analyzed in detail how exactly this procedure works, using Brexit as an example. [4]

The real facts, on the other hand, have a hard time for several reasons. As a rule of thumb, they do not have any of the features described above. In addition, fact checkers often come late. If they have identified a message as fake news their real facts don`t matter, because new false news has been spread already. Thus, the facts go lost in the garbage of fake news. Donald Trump has achieved a special achievement in this field. The Washington Post did the math: Trump has made 3,251 false or misleading claims during his first 497 days in office. That's an average of more than 6.5 untruths per day! [5]

Lack of trust in traditional media as a necessary prerequisite

A very important component is a lack of trust in the traditional media. This mistrust varies from country to country and over time. [6] In the USA, for example, confidence in traditional news sources has been declining for years. According to Gallup, 2016 was the year with the lowest confidence rates ever recorded. Less than a third of American adults, 32 percent, had "a lot" or "quite a lot" of trust in the media. In 1976, it was 72 percent. [3] By the way, this mistrust is another obstacle to fact checking.

Keeping silent about fake news is no option either. If people feel that information is being censored, they seem to think the information is even more credible. [7] This probably even applies to information that is merely claimed to be suppressed by the "ruling classes" - a characteristic of false news, by the way ("hit the bogeyman").

Another important circumstance is the manipulability of social media and the limited insight of company management. Already in 2012 a remarkable book was published: "Trust me, I'm lying". In it a marketer named Ryan Holiday reports how he systematically manipulated the blogger scene for his customers [8]. The mistakes of Facebook and Twitter in dealing with leaked user data, dark ads and conspiracy theorists justified their own post.

Last but not least, media behaviour itself is not unproblematic. Let us take the example of Donald Trump again. Reporting on his statements provides reach and reach is important for media financed by advertising - as well as for those who spread fake news. It doesn't help that hastily convened and proportionally balanced expert panels dissect the statements until the public has lost all orientation.  It's no wonder that citizens are now finding out about satirical shows such as the Late Night Show (Stephen Colbert) or Last Week Tonight (John Oliver).

But what does that concern us in Germany?

Compared to the other countries like the USA, GB or Brazil it seems to be (still) rather quiet in Germany. [9] In Germany, confidence in traditional news media is still comparatively high at 56 percent, a good 10 points above the EU average (Eurobarometer of the European Commission, November 2017). [6] Fortunately, Germans are not as dependent on the social media for information as they are in the US for example. [2a] But in Germany, too, there are topics that polarize strongly, the accusation of manipulative reporting "(Lügenpresse" - literally: the press of lies) is already being raised, and the Germany is the target of disinformation campaigns from abroad (the "Lisa case"). [10] This will not change in the foreseeable future.

In a nutshell

The case of fake news shows how closely democracy and a functioning fourth estate depend on each other. This is also confirmed by a EU survey. Satisfaction with democracy and trust in the media go hand in hand. The clear majority of those who are satisfied with democracy in Germany trust the media (65 percent). However, 25 percent are not satisfied with democracy in Germany. Only 30 percent of them trust the media. This is similar in other EU countries. [6] But no democracy can survive without journalists who bring light into the darkness. Or as the Washington Post puts it: Democracy in the dark.

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[1] Bethke, Martin (2001): Macht und Ohnmacht der Worte: William Randolph Hearst und der Weg der USA zur Weltmacht, 1898-1917 (https://goo.gl/RhYwt7)
[2] Samuel, Alexandra (2016): To fix fake news, look to yellow journalism (https://goo.gl/1yHRd8)
[2a] Derlath, J. (2018): „Zerstören soziale Netzwerke unser gesellschaftliches Gefüge?“ (https://goo.gl/3sQwrq)
[3] Harrison, Guy P. (2017):Think before you like.
[4] Jäger, S. (2018): Wie manipuliert man eine Wahl. (https://goo.gl/uoDQ7K)
[5] Parker, Ashley (2018): President Trump seems to be saying more and more things that aren’t true (https://goo.gl/9gAQpo)
[6] Sander, Uwe (2018): Eurobarometer: Vertrauen in Presse auf 10-Jahres-Hoch (https://goo.gl/BNveBS)
[7] Cialdini, Robert (2009): Influence
[8] Holiday, Ryan (2012): Trust me, I‘m lying.
[9] Gavrilis Panajotis (2018): Wie Fake News verbreitet werden (https://goo.gl/yubCJF)
[10] Jolkver, Nikita (2017): Der „Fall Lisa“ ein Jahr danach. War da was? (https://goo.gl/9UiFNv). The Lisa case is a political issue in the context of the refugee crisis in Germany from 2015 onwards that arose from a missing person case in German-Russian circles in January 2016. A girl with German-Russian parents had falsely stated that she had been abducted and raped by refugees. The case led to intensive reporting, especially in the Russian media, and to diplomatic tensions between Germany and Russia.