Redesigning Fake News: Is This Concept Still Fruitful?

Maurizio  Mascitti

doi:10.4396/2024062V04

Maurizio Mascitti

DOI: https://doi.org/10.4396/2024062V04

Keywords: news, information, conceptual necessity, fake news, norms of journalism

Abstract

The notion of fake news is criticized for being conceptually superfluous (Habgood-Coote 2019). The reason is that we possess in our philosophical vocabulary other less controversial concepts that may already do its work. Despite everything, I claim that the notion of fake news still has its own utility. To see this, we must reduce the scope of fake news to keep it separated from other potential overlapping concepts, even at the cost of struggling a little bit with the ordinary sense of the term. In this regard my proposal is to consider fake news as news that significantly violates journalistic norms. Hence, I describe two sets of journalistic norms that regulate the process of production and publication of news, respectively. When one those sets (or both) is significantly infringed, the outcome is fake news. This view sets fake news apart from other pathologies of information, since it pays no attention to truth values of news and the intentions of news producers.

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