This article explains that fake news is, in essence, a two-dimensional phenomenon of public communication: there is the (1) fake news genre, describing the deliberate creation of pseudojournalistic disinformation, and there is the (2) fake news label, describing the political instrumentalization of the term to delegitimize news media.
This article will help students to navigate the different terminology related to fake news, disinformation, misinformation, conspiracies, propaganda, etc. and help them contextualise how the media uses the duplicity of the word fake news and to which goal.
Citation:
Egelhofer, J.L. and Lecheler, S. (2019) ‘Fake news as a two-dimensional phenomenon: a framework and research agenda’, Annals of the International Communication Association, 43(2), pp. 97–116. Available at: https://doi.org/10.1080/ 23808985.2019.1602782.
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June 23, 2025
