NEWSpiracy Tutor Handbook EN

https://newspiracy.eu The project "NEWSpiracy" is co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The content of NEWSpiracy is the sole responsibility of the project partners and neither the European Commission nor the Spanish Service for the Internationalisation of Education (SEPIE) is responsible for any use that may be made of the information contained therein. Project Number: 2022-1-ES01-KA220-HED-000089608 Disinformation: fake news and post-truth What are fake news The emergence of information and communication technologies (ICT) has increased the amount of information to which people are exposed. On the one hand, due to the appearance of new dissemination channels and, on the other hand, due to the ease of creating new news items. The new information channels have changed the rules of sender and receiver, with the people who consume news themselves being the ones who can create new pieces (Vila & Arce, 2019). This overexposure of information has meant that users are the ones who decide what to visit and what to read. At the same time, low-quality information has increased, as truthful news has been placed in the same position as fake news (Blanco-Herrero & Arcilla-Calderón, 2019). Fake news is news items that at first glance may seem reliable, but is not, as it lacks verification and checking prior to publication. These pieces of news are created on fictitious accounts or digital platforms under the guise of newspapers, which creates confusion, and are often accompanied by sensationalist titles to capture the reader's attention and appeal to their emotions (Chulvi, 2018). According to Allcott and Gentzkow (2017), fake news is information that is deliberately created to mislead the reader. It does not have to be entirely fabricated; it can be based on a truth or contain parts that are real, but ultimately construct a story that is not true. These pieces of news are created so that readers will believe them and make them go viral and, according to these authors (2017), they hide an objective that can be both economic (making money) and ideological (influencing people's thinking and generating controversy).