Fake News as a Persuasion Attempt, in a Post-Globalization Context. Extrapolations from Friestad and Wright’s Persuasion Knowledge Model

Fake news is not a new phenomenon, but rather one that gained in efficiency due to technological progress. Technology influences both democracy and capitalism nowadays. The downside of the positive effect technology has on capitalism and democracy is that it increases the threat of fake news. The COVID-19 pandemic pushed the world further on a post-globalization path. This means, on the one hand, focusing economies more on technological solutions and, on the other hand, coping with the threats that accompany such preponderant orientation toward technology. One more reason to avoid misunderstanding fake news threat… In this study, we will look at fake news as a phenomenon that existed even before mass communication and what is called media or journalism. An adequate view is in order once we consider that fake news will not be approached as media news. Such a versatile concept embodies obvious postmodern ingredients—it requires an epistemological outlook for a proper understanding since it is a construct that is selling the fake as true to consumers in the context of digital capitalism. It has a similar power to the sociological concept of self-fulfilling prophecy (Merton, Antioch Rev 8(2) (Summer, 1948), 193–210, 1948). Looking at this similarity leads our research toward analyzing fake news as a persuasion attempt. Based on hypothesizing that fake news has persuasion embedded in it, insights can be drawn from Wright and Friestad’s Persuasion Knowledge Model (Friestad, Wright, J Consume Res, 1994), which we will extrapolate from in order to further develop a conceptual model around fake news as a persuasion episode.