Types of Fake News

Lesson 1 provided an in-depth look at one of the most pervasive types of fake news: native advertising. With native advertising, the persuasive message content is generated by the client. Thus, native advertising and other sponsored content allows strategic communicators the opportunity to shape the media content.

Lesson 2 focuses on the remaining types of fake news: satire, news parody, fabrication, manipulation and propaganda (Tandoc, Lim & Ling, 2018). With these types of fake news, the organization does not create the editorial content. Instead, it is often the target of the messages created by a third-party source.

Therefore, public relations professionals must understand the types of “fake news” that could potentially threaten their clients or stakeholders.

From a public relations perspective, it is important to consider fake news types focusing on both facticity and level of deception.

By examining fake news stories, as well as strategic responses, PR professionals can understand how to successfully and ethically respond to fake news stories.

While the ultimate goal of news coverage may differ for journalists and public relational practitioners, both professions operate under the same ethical principle of telling the truth.

However, truth, itself, is now at odds with a cultural shift where people often associate news with the word “fake.” Despite the lack of an agreement upon definition and the various types of fake news, the phenomenon has critical implications for the functioning of a democratic society, press freedom, individual citizens and professional communicators.