The following is a blog post that Eni Mustafaraj has recently published in The Spoke. We reproduce it here with permission.
Fake news has always been with us, starting with The Great Moon Hoax in 1835. What is different now is the existence of a mass medium, the Web, that allows anyone to financially benefit from it.
Etymologists typically track the change of a word’s meaning over decades, sometimes even over centuries. Currently, however, they find themselves observing a new president and his administration redefine words and phrases on a daily basis. Case in point: “fake news.” One would have to look hard to find an American who hasn’t heard this phrase in recent months. The president loves to apply it as a label to news organizations that he doesn’t agree with.
Read more at TwitterTrails, a research project at Wellesley College.
Image courtesy of TwitterTrails.
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