Fake news has been used in the past to feed into people’s fears and prejudices. A particularly poignant story from 1913 relates to the wrongful conviction of an innocent man named Leo Frank.
The growth of new, vibrant, independent media sites and projects in South Africa have challenged conceptions of what a newsroom is. On limited budgets, some even fare better than mainstream media.
On Q&A, government minister Zed Seselja remarked that surveys showed confidence in media has fallen globally. In Australia, he said, it has dropped lower than in the US. Is he right?
How do you know your search results or social media feeds aren’t being manipulated for political purposes? It’s not a crime to do so. But we believe it should be.
Alternate realities don’t just exist in politics – and not all falsehoods are lies. Distortions of the truth can range from a normal part of human nature to pathological.
In Africa, the idea of a post-truth era - which by implication fundamentally presupposes the existence of an era in which ‘truth’ was self-evident - is folly.