DISINFORMATION ON SOCIAL MEDIA AND PRACTICES OF FACT-CHECKING PLATFORMS

What is it about?

The new communication technologies have had a transformative impact on the society and communication environment in the 21st century. With the integration of the Internet and social media into everyday life, the practices of communication and journalism have also changed. Although the Internet brought easy access to information, rapid circulation of news and the network structure which brings people together easily; circulation of fake news via social media networks emerged as a problem which endangers the democratic public opinion formation process. Fact-checking platforms, which operate in digital media, have started to play an important role concerning the fight against this fake news issue. In this framework, the two fact-checking websites, “Teyit.org" ve "Snopes.com" have been chosen as case studies. First of all, the features of these platforms have been put forward, the fact-checking methods they use have been examined and via content analysis, which issues they prioritize in fact-checking processes has been revealed. In addition to that, the limitations of fact-checking services were discussed in the study. Also, it has been underlined that individual awareness against fake news and raising digital media literacy levels are equally important in addressing this issue.

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