Description
The terms ‘fake news’ and ‘alternative facts’ have lost their shock value in
today’s public discourse and seem to have become part of our normal
political vocabulary. Fake news, mis- and disinformation are not a problem
of a particular country but are found in politics around the world. In this
paper, I look at how disinformation appears as a problem for democracy.
Empirically, this paper explores dominant patterns of argumentation with a
focus on the US, Germany and Czechia. I discuss the themes of media
literacy, hybrid warfare and the emergence of fringe media. This paper
argues that more attention needs to be paid to the affectual dimension of
why people share fake news. Even though there is no easy solution for
dealing with fake news, a first step is to stop denouncing people for
believing in fake news and putting all our hope in media literacy.
