Reconstructing Identities in Fake News: Comparing two Fake News Websites
Rekonstrukce identit ve fake news: Srovnání dvou webových stránek s obsahem fake news
diploma thesis (DEFENDED)
View/ Open
Permanent link
http://hdl.handle.net/20.500.11956/118783Identifiers
Study Information System: 224337
Collections
- Kvalifikační práce [17642]
Author
Advisor
Referee
Špelda, Petr
Faculty / Institute
Faculty of Social Sciences
Discipline
International Security Studies
Department
Department of Security Studies
Date of defense
25. 6. 2020
Publisher
Univerzita Karlova, Fakulta sociálních vědLanguage
English
Grade
Excellent
Keywords (Czech)
fake news, critical discourse analysis, topic modelling, latent Dirichlet allocationKeywords (English)
fake news, critical discourse analysis, topic modelling, latent Dirichlet allocationTOPICAL ANALYSIS OF FAKE NEWS 4 Abstract Since the 2016 US presidential campaign of Donald Trump, the term "fake news" has permeated mainstream discourse. The proliferation of disinformation and false narratives on social media platforms has caused concern in security circles in both the United States and European Union. Combining latent Dirichlet allocation, a machine learning method for text mining, with themes on topical analysis, ideology and social identity drawn from Critical Discourse theory, this thesis examines the elaborate fake news environments of two well-known English language websites: InfoWars and Sputnik News. Through the exploration of the ideologies and social representations at play in the larger thematic structure of these websites, a picture of two very different platforms emerges. One, a white dominant, somewhat isolationist counterculture mindset that promotes a racist and bigoted view of the world. Another, a more subtle world order-making perspective intent on reaching people in the realm of the mundane. Keywords: fake news, Sputnik, InfoWars, topical analysis, latent Dirichlet allocation Od americké prezidentské kampaně Donalda Trumpa z roku 2016, termín "fake news" (doslovně falešné zprávy) pronikl do mainstreamového diskurzu. Šíření dezinformací a falešných zpráv na platformách...