Fake News and the Internet: Online Communities and the Fragmentation of the Mediascape

The Trump presidency is marked by the powerful discourse of “fake news.” Fake news, firmly wedged in public discourse, puts into question the facts and narratives disseminated in mainstream media. While it may have been Trump that popularized this word, I will approach the emergence of fake news through an analysis of the changing mediascape in the internet age. I analyze two trends in particular; one, the flattening of the media landscape; and two, the formation of small, niche “tribes” in virtual space that develop a worldview with which to interpret events.

Previously, a producer of media required large capital investments; this included large expenditures in property, equipment, and skilled labor. The distribution of media was also restricted to a few players with distribution channels established over time. Both factors limited the number of entrants in the media market, limiting the potential narratives in public discourse. Through the mystery of these mechanisms inaccessible to the masses—from the magic of the latest technologies and the specialized training for professional reporters—reality underwent a transmutation into material facts. Facts from the mainstream news media were bestowed with the brand of authority; they existed on a privileged epistemological plane. The mainstream media, whose narrative was the only narrative, dictated the truth, and constructed the very fabric of reality for the masses.

In the contemporary world, every consumer of the media is also a potential producer. Anyone with a decent camera, a microphone, and a viewpoint can upload and propagate their thoughts through Youtube; the previous barriers to entry have collapsed. In addition, the very medium of distribution has changed—from the lofty and inaccessible heights of a cable network, news from mainstream media have fallen and co-exist alongside the Youtube channel of an everyday man operating from his basement; there has been a formal flattening of distribution mediums to accompany the democratization of media production. News from mainstream media no longer exists in a privileged epistemological plane. They are exposed to and contend with various narratives from smaller media players, who are endowed with the same potential reach. The authority to truth is no longer reserved for mainstream media brands—authority is now measured by subscribers and followers; and truth, in terms of the narratives in public discourse, is a quantitative measurement, measured by views.[1]

The internet has allowed for the groupings of people across previously unbreachable spatial boundaries. The removal of the spatial boundary has facilitated the formation of new communities who are no longer separated by the tyranny of physical space; the virtual space gives them freedom to create new groups of voluntary association. These imaginary communities develop their own spaces of communication—the agoras of the digital world—through means like newsletters, online messaging boards, and media publications. Over time, communities develop a certain ethos, a dialect with which they communicate, and eventually become isolate and institutionalized like islands in virtual space, developing an interpretative lens with which they understand the world.[2]

Around a year prior, one such community announced its presence to the general public in the form of a white van that ran over, injured, and killed tens of people in Toronto—the incel community. The perpetrator, Alek Minassian, wrote this post on his Facebook just before the incident:

“Private (Recruit) Minassian Infantry 00010, wishing to speak to Sgt 4chan please. C23249161. The Incel Rebellion has already begun! We will overthrow all the Chads and Stacys! All hail the Supreme Gentleman Elliot Rodger!”

How has this worldview developed? The incel community began as a support group for people with difficulties in dating by a progressive, queer woman in the 1990s.[3] In the 2000s, two sub-communities split off into two online forums; IncelSupport, a mixed-gender support community, and LoveShy, which nurtured a violent, misogynistic strain, and formed online alliances with alt-right communities. The latter community dominated, and developed the “blackpill” ideology, the interpretative lens of the incel community. In the incel worldview, there are two archetypes: the “Chad,” who are attractive males that all women want to sleep with, and the “Stacy,” who are beautiful women who will only sleep with a Chad. In the hierarchy of men, incels are at the bottom and are doomed to celibacy.
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Facts and narratives disseminated by mainstream media can be viewed as texts without an inherent interpretation. A singular, agreed-upon interpretation in the public sphere is a contested process, and interpretative communities view news narratives with a critical lens informed by their world and their social context.[4] These communities are not silent: a simple search for “incel” on Youtube will result in mainstream media videos and various videos from incel Youtube channels. Through the internet, members of these communities are producers of media, contributing to the cacophony of public discourse with interpretations that can verge on the extreme to mainstream sensibilities. As the power of mainstream media and their interpretations disintegrate, as the continent floods and is divided into smaller islands, it becomes increasingly difficult for a single narrative, a single interpretation, to crystallize and construct a singular fabric of reality to understand the world.
 


[1] I use the word “truth” to refer to the fabric of reality that is constructed and disseminated through the media.

[2] This is not to say that these communities are rigidly constituted; communities are always in flux.

[3] Zack Beauchamp spent a year researching the incel community: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/4/16/18287446/incel-definition-reddit

[4] Weller, Robert P. Resistance, Chaos and Control in China. Seattle: University of Washington Press.