Delving deeper

   After thinking about what we could do for our newspaper that represented real news vs fake news, I decided to do more research on fake news and the goals of spreading false information out to the public. Not only was I incredibly angry after reading through all these articles, I also understood what the end goal of spreading this information was. I came across the article "What's 'fake news' 60 minutes producers investigate" this article talks about how the producers sat down with people who have spread this fake news and why they did it. One of the men said he 'got a rush' from doing so to which one of the producers when talking about it said, "It's powerful, right?' Radutzky says. 'To create something out of whole cloth and have people believe that it's true." This made me think of why fake news is spread in the eyes of those who spread it. It creates a sense of power to them to know that people will actually believe it. Another article I came across talked about the relation of propaganda and fake news. The article "What is fake news? Its origins and how it grew in 2016" states "Propaganda and Internet fake news do, however, hold similarities: both are methods of distorting the truth for emotional persuasion, seeking to drive action." This article also gave me a better understanding of what the goal is in terms of how it affects those consuming it. Not only does it give those who write it power, it makes those consuming the fake news susceptible to whatever it is they are reading. Another article that explained the same idea was an article named "What's Propaganda Got To Do With It?" this article goes in depth about propaganda, saying:

"People are turning to propaganda as a media epithet because it helps to express discomfort with media - and the 'fake news' controversy is just one part of this discomfort. The epithet gets its sting, in part, from popular imaginings of propaganda as bombastic, deceptive mass communications from an overreaching or abusive state. But this cultural imaginary can also limit our perceptions of how power and meaning move through society." 

Reading this in the article really stuck with me specifically because of the last part, saying how it limits our perceptions and I felt that we could come up with something as an article that limits the people in the worlds perception and experience of life. After doing all this research on fake news, I realized that although real news vs fake news is good, its nearly impossible to establish this difference and add the difference of relationships between people in each world within 2 minutes. So we thought instead of thinking of real vs fake, why don't we make it where the information is fake in both worlds but it is fake with the end goal of "limiting our perceptions of how power and meaning move through society." So we thought why not use the red world to show this anger and hostility of the government trying to hold people back, and the blue world to show how they are trying to keep people apart. We thought for the red world it could be "Freedom of speech: detrimental to us as a society" and in the blue world it could be "Studies show human interaction to be harmful to the individual." One can show the anger of people in one world being limited and held back and the other shows 'scientific study' on how interaction between people can be harmful and cause a sense of dependency on others, therefore harming the individual. We thought this could be a good idea because we are introducing this character to be in one world that she knew and thought she understood, to then be presented to a different world that she doesn't understand at all. I'm excited that we have the final part we needed for filming because now we are ready to start. My group and I have talked and decided we would start Friday night and continue Saturday and Sunday if needed as well!
    Until next time!
        Jess










Citations:

News, CBS. "What's "fake news"? 60 Minutes producers investigate." CBS News. CBS Interactive, 27 Mar. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Carson, James. "What is fake news? Its origins and how it grew in 2016." The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group, 08 Feb. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.
Jack, Caroline. "What's Propaganda Got To Do With It?" Data & Society: Points. Data & Society: Points, 05 Jan. 2017. Web. 30 Mar. 2017.