Cerovina, Sara

Rasmussen, Cecilie Nilherth

Skydsgaard, Line Beierholm

Sunnari, Laura Henna Sinikka

The aim of this paper is to shed light on Danish audience perspectives on fake news. In order to do so, essential literature surrounding the research field, including aspects of democracy, is reviewed and presented along with a definition of fake news created for the sake of this paper. Insights into audience perspectives are gained through four semi-structured interviews with four randomly chosen Danish individuals at the age between 18 and 29. Through a predominantly inductive analysis different categories are derived from the interviews, including the informants’ own definitions of fake news, their reaction when encountering fake news, and who––according to them––are responsible for creating and spreading fake news. Following the analysis it can be concluded that the informants do not perceive fake news as a coined phenomenon, but rather as a term associated with a mix of poor journalism, advertisement, deliberately fabricated news stories, lying politicians, and more. When asked whether they would react when encountering fake news online, none of the informants would choose to do so. The research results also show that the informants perceive themselves as critical and to some extent able of distinguishing false from true news. The findings of this paper open up for discussions about the internet, its enablement of many-to-many communication, and democracy in a digital era.The aim of this paper is to shed light on Danish audience perspectives on fake news. In order to do so, essential literature surrounding the research field, including aspects of democracy, is reviewed and presented along with a definition of fake news created for the sake of this paper. Insights into audience perspectives are gained through four semi-structured interviews with four randomly chosen Danish individuals at the age between 18 and 29. Through a predominantly inductive analysis different categories are derived from the interviews, including the informants’ own definitions of fake news, their reaction when encountering fake news, and who––according to them––are responsible for creating and spreading fake news. Following the analysis it can be concluded that the informants do not perceive fake news as a coined phenomenon, but rather as a term associated with a mix of poor journalism, advertisement, deliberately fabricated news stories, lying politicians, and more. When asked whether they would react when encountering fake news online, none of the informants would choose to do so. The research results also show that the informants perceive themselves as critical and to some extent able of distinguishing false from true news. The findings of this paper open up for discussions about the internet, its enablement of many-to-many communication, and democracy in a digital era

Danish Audience Perspectives on Fake News: Danish Audience Perspectives on Fake News

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Roskilde Universitet