In an era of shifting demographics, changing ways in which individuals consume information, declining revenue of legacy media resulting in smaller newsrooms, and the need for continuous breaking news coverage throughout the day, it is no wonder that fake news has been able to proliferate online. Add in the hyper-partisan divide leading to an echo chamber online for most Americans, it is not surprising fake news has made its way onto social media.
In this short but highly engaging film, director and producer Leslie Iwerks highlights the fake news industry that developed in Macedonia during the 2016 U.S. presidential election and continued into the 2020 election. Producing clickbait content on the internet is an easy endeavor for young people to significantly increase their earning potential in Macedonia.
Using a formulaic process, these young people were able to repurpose existing content by providing an eye-catching title and partisan content that fit into a narrative for an individual seeking confirmation. This process developed at a time when legacy media was unable to pivot quickly enough to accommodate the evolving information-seeking behavior of Americans and those in the western world.
This film is brilliantly shot with a mix of existing news clips, interviews with Macedonian fake news content producers, and other experts to highlight the impact that this industry had on an American election. It covers a lot of ground in a short timeframe and will lead to conversations about the range of reasons why fake news promulgates on social media, including legacy media biases, faulty algorithms, a decline in journalistic integrity, and the desire for opinion rather than news.
While focusing on the fake news originating from Macedonia and the impact it has had on U.S. elections, this film continues to highlight the need for knowledge-seekers to evaluate the information they are consuming on a daily basis. This film will support a range of disciplinary needs and collections and will continue to find relevance as the issues of fake news and the need to determine the veracity of the information we are using will continue into the future as technology expedites the flow of data. Highly Recommended. Aud. J, H, C, P.
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