{"id":199,"date":"2019-01-31T04:11:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-31T04:11:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/?p=199"},"modified":"2019-01-31T04:11:26","modified_gmt":"2019-01-31T04:11:26","slug":"reading-reflection-2-01-31-jacob-benjamin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/2019\/01\/31\/reading-reflection-2-01-31-jacob-benjamin\/","title":{"rendered":"Reading Reflection #2 \u2013 01\/31 \u2013 Jacob Benjamin"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><em>This Just In: Fake News Packs a Lot in Title, Uses Simpler, Repetitive\nContent in Text Body, More Similar to Satire than Real News<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>     Horne and Sibel (2017) sought to explore the differences between real and fake news.&nbsp; Unlike prior studies, satirical news was considered an additional category. The primary question approached in the study was: \u201c<em>Is there any systematic stylistic and other content differences between fake and real news?<\/em>\u201d&nbsp; To answer this question, Horne and Sibel (2017) gathered three different data sets:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Buzzfeed\u2019s analysis of real and fake news items from\nthe 2016 US Elections.<\/li><li>Self-collected news articles on US politics from\nreal, fake, and satire news sources.<\/li><li>A previous study\u2019s data set containing real and\nsatire articles. <\/li><\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Contrary to the assumption that\nfake news is written to look like real news and fool the reader, Horne and\nSibel (2017) found that the assumption is not true.&nbsp; Rather, the articles employ heuristics such\nas title structure and noun choice.&nbsp; It\nwas also concluded that fake news specifically targets those who do not read\nbeyond the title.&nbsp; <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>     While I found many of the finding to be fascinating, I was once again unsurprised by many of the findings.&nbsp; The conclusion that fake news is most easily discernible, and most effective, via the title is something I have observed through the shared posts and associated comment sections on Facebook and Twitter for years.&nbsp; However, beyond this initial concern, the study raised a number of concerns and questions:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>Foremost of these concerns is their strategy for\ndividing sources into real, fake, and satirical sources.&nbsp; While these categories will work in most\ncases, increasingly often reputable (real) sources will have vast differences\nin the news they report.&nbsp; Depending on\nthe event, both sources cannot be correct, and perhaps neither source is\ncorrect.&nbsp; Thus, bias also plays a large\npart in the real versus fake news cycle.&nbsp;\nIt would be erroneous to determine that all real sources post only real\nnews, and fake news sources only post fake news.&nbsp; <\/li><li>Additionally, many, if not all, of the news articles\nconcerned US politics.&nbsp; This raises the question\nas to whether or not these findings can be generalized to other issues.&nbsp; <\/li><li>While Horne and Sibel (2017) raised some of the\nissues with reversing or combating fake news, they later failed to offer suggestions\nas to how to utilize their data.&nbsp; I feel\nas researchers and information scientists, it is also our duty to take the next\nstep beyond the study, even if that next step is just providing possible uses\nfor the data or suggesting finding derived approaches to the issue at hand.&nbsp; We are responsible for the information we\nfind.&nbsp; <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Horne, &amp; Sibel. (2017,\nMarch 28). This Just In: Fake News Packs a Lot in Title, Uses Simpler,\nRepetitive Content in Text Body, More Similar to Satire than Real News.\nRetrieved January 30, 2019, from https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1703.09398<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This Just In: Fake News Packs a Lot in Title, Uses Simpler, Repetitive Content in Text Body, More Similar to Satire than Real News Horne and Sibel (2017) sought to explore the differences between real and fake news.&nbsp; Unlike prior studies, satirical news was considered an additional category. The primary question approached in the study [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":234,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-199","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/234"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=199"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":201,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/199\/revisions\/201"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=199"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=199"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wordpress.cs.vt.edu\/cs4984spring19\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=199"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}