News Abbreviations

What is news?

News is any type of information that presents a new and recent event or that discloses a novelty about an already existing situation. The origin of the word “news” comes from Latin, where “ notitia ” means “notoriety; knowledge of someone; notion”.

The news is an informative text, which can appear on television, internet, radio, newspapers and magazines. It belongs to the narration group, and has the elements that make up a narrative, such as characters, time and space.

It is common to use the term as a synonym for “whereabouts”, when it is intended to have knowledge about a particular person. For example: “Have you heard from our colleague Maria Antônia?”.

In journalism, news is an informative text of public interest, which narrates some recent event that occurred in the country or in the world. Its content can be formed by a political, economic, social, cultural theme, etc.

The narration of news of a journalistic genre must be done in an exact, objective and impartial way. In this genre of news, the veracity of the facts, the clarity of the language and the objectivity of the content must be highlighted.

The main questions that must be answered to structure a news are: “what?”, “who?”, “when?”, “where?”, “how?”, “why?”.

The structure of the journalistic text is called an “inverted pyramid”, as the most relevant information in the news should appear in the first paragraph. Further information appears in the following paragraphs in descending order of importance.

Difference between news and reportage

Despite being similar, the difference between the report and the news is in the structure of the texts.

The news is a short text that tells an event that occurred in the present. It may feature quotes from the people involved in the event, or who witnessed it.

The report is more elaborate. In it, the writer presents a deeper analysis on a given subject. It also has interviews and surveys to develop the text and present the most important aspects of the topic addressed.

In the reports, for example, it is possible to find infographics, expert opinions and other information that is relevant to the topic.

What are fake news?

Fake news means “fake news”. It is news information that does not represent reality, but is shared on the internet as if it were true, mainly through social networks.

Usually, the purpose of fake news is to create controversy around a situation or person, contributing to the denigration of their image. By having an extremely dramatic, appealing and controversial content, fake news usually attract a lot of attention from the masses, especially when they are devoid of critical sense.

Thus, fake content can act as an illegal “weapon” against something. In the political sphere, for example, fake news is used with the aim of “tarnishing” the reputation of a particular candidate, causing him to lose potential voters.

How to identify fake news ?

Due to the ease with which information can be created and shared on the internet, it is essential that the user has a high critical sense when faced with any type of content.

It may seem difficult to identify fake news, but following some basic steps it is easy to know if the information analyzed is true or not.

Read all content

One of the most common types of fake news is when the news title is presented in a disconnected way with the rest of the information. Unfortunately, many people share content on social networks, for example, without reading the entire text and, thus, are spreading totally distorted ideas about what actually happened.

Check the origin

Fake news is poor sources. When information does not contain basic journalistic elements, such as the reference to what is being said, for example, the veracity of the text becomes questionable.

Check the authors

Another tip is to check the identity of the authors of the text and look for a history of works that have already been done by these people. In many cases the authors of a fake news can be fake, so if there is no indication of who wrote the information, the probability that it is fake news is high.

Search for other sources

When we receive some information, we should not rely solely on the first news source. The ideal is to search for other credible communication vehicles and check if the content was also published and what information is contained in the different texts.

Check the news release date

It may be that the information is true, but it is being used out of its original context. Therefore, before sharing news, for example, it is important to check the date on which it was published.

Critical thinking on alert

The most important thing is having the ability to question the “truths”, not accepting everything as if it were absolutely real just because you “read it on the internet”.

Fake news and the “post-truth”

Post-truth is a neologism created to name the social phenomenon developed on the internet where fake news ( fake news ) is considered truth due to its massive dissemination.

The term “post-truth” was voted Word of the Year in 2016 by the Oxford Dictionary. Post-truth has been defined as the idea that a concrete fact has less significance or influence than “appeals to emotion and personal beliefs”.

This means that, according to the concept of post-truth, it becomes more important to believe that something is true (even if it is not) than what is in fact true.

Thus, the use of the prefix “pós” refers to the idea that the concept of truth does not have the same meaning as in the past.

Types of fake news

Fake news is created for different reasons and, depending on these, can be classified into 7 main types of fake news:

Satire or parody

It is not normally intended to cause harm. They are often present on comedy websites and can be easily identified as fake.

False connection

These are when the images, title or headline do not match the rest of the news content. This type of fake news is done due to a bad journalism policy or for the profit of a certain site.

In the latter case, appealing titles are created to draw people’s attention to click on the site ( clickbait ), just so that the page’s owners can earn money by viewing the advertisements they have in the articles, for example.

Deceptive content

It is the classic content that presents false information. It can be used in various situations, mainly with a partisan character, such as political influence or propaganda strategy.

False context

In this case the news information is totally true, but it is being used out of its original context. That is, it can be old news that is used as if it were recent, for example.

Imposter content

This type is characterized by using statements that were supposedly made by true sources, when in reality they never came to make such statements.

Manipulated content

It is one of the most complex types of fake news to analyze. In this case, the content presented is true, but the person who wrote it builds the text in a way capable of manipulating the less attentive audience.

Fabricated content

It’s a perverse type of content. It is 100% false, that is, the entire text was invented with the purpose of causing misinformation, misleading people and, consequently, causing some harm.

Consequences of Fake News

The spread of fake news can have disastrous and tragic consequences. People can be unfairly punished for acts they didn’t commit and even wars can be declared due to the spread of fake news, for example.

To prevent fake news from continuing to cause great social and political damage, some preventive and punishing measures are being applied by the main digital platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Google. In addition, bills are intensified to ensure control against the spread of false information on social networks.

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