{"id":2125,"date":"2020-04-12T14:13:38","date_gmt":"2020-04-12T14:13:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/?p=2125"},"modified":"2020-04-12T14:17:55","modified_gmt":"2020-04-12T14:17:55","slug":"erga-atad-political-communication-and-misinformation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/2020\/04\/12\/erga-atad-political-communication-and-misinformation\/","title":{"rendered":"Erga Atad: Political Communication and Misinformation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On February 19th, the second conference within the set of Current Topics in Strategic Communication <\/em>organized by Youthquake Talks took place. Israeli Professor Erga Atad inspired everyone with her dynamic style and her extensive knowledge of Political Communication and Misinformation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The Professor started by pointing out the current context of news consumption, and the profile of consumers themselves. \u201cWe are not passive consumers of information<\/em>\u201d stated Professor Atad, while showing statistics of Things that happen on the internet every 60 seconds. However, she explained how, even if we consume large amounts of information, we do not trust it: \u201cPeople see the information as inaccurate.<\/em>\u201d Moreover, \u201cwe do not understand<\/em> it<\/em>\u201d either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Atad continued the conference by showing different definitions of fake news, taking into account examples as relevant as the 2016 US elections. Though there are many definitions of the phenomenon, she explained, one of them in specific is used more frequently. The definition includes two elements that have to be present in order to classify information as fake news: \u201cthe intention<\/strong> of the actor to mislead<\/strong> us<\/em>\u201d and second, \u201cthe level of facts present<\/strong><\/em>\u201d (See Table 1). According to the classification, Atad identified certain typologies of fake news that one might not associate with the phenomenon: News satire, news parody, or even native advertising. Moreover, the phenomenon itself has been related to other popular terminologies, such as disinformation and misinformation. The speaker stressed the difference between the two: misinformation<\/strong> can be false and mislead consumers, but it is not deliberately done by the actor; disinformation<\/strong> is deliberate, and the actor actively tries to mislead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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However difficult tackling the problem might be, Erga Atad drew attention to possible initiatives to combat fake news. Moreover, she analysed the challenge of engaging technology companies to fight the phenomenon too. The speaker pointed out the difficulty of asking social media platforms, such as Facebook, to regulate the amount of fake news. Atad explained that these companies \u201cdo not have the motivation<\/em><\/strong>\u201d to do so, and \u201cdo not want to be involved with all the regulation<\/em>\u201d it would bring. Nevertheless, the speaker did present solutions that individuals could adopt to combat fake news. As Atad put it: \u201cthe most important thing \u2026 is to check the information you<\/strong> are consuming. Use Google and other sources, make sure before you publish information that it isn\u2019t fake.\u201d <\/em>Once again, Atad reminded the audience that they \u201chave an active role<\/strong><\/em>\u201d on the situation, and hence, in participating to solve the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Thus, the students of Comillas CIHS learnt more about the challenging nature of fake news, present in numerous spheres such as political communication.  Atad concluded her talk by emphasising the role of individuals in fighting the phenomenon, and possible solutions available to consumers in order to identify fake news. She emphasized the need to \u201ccheck the information we<\/strong> are consuming<\/em>\u201d. Our strategy \u201cbefore trying to solve fake news globally<\/em>,\u201d is that \u201cwe should think about ourselves first.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ang\u00e9lica Rodr\u00edguez Pe\u00f1a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Aitana S\u00e1nchez Mascaraque<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On February 19th, the second conference within the set of Current Topics in Strategic Communication organized by Youthquake Talks took place. Israeli Professor Erga Atad inspired everyone with her dynamic style and her extensive knowledge of Political Communication and Misinformation.  The Professor started by pointing out the current context of news consumption, and the profile … Leer m\u00e1s<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":538,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"colormag_page_container_layout":"default_layout","colormag_page_sidebar_layout":"default_layout","generate_page_header":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[247],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2125","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-current-topics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/538"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2125"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2143,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2125\/revisions\/2143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.comillas.edu\/comillasbabel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}