Fake News: The Case for a Purely Consumer-Oriented Explication

Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy (forthcoming)
  Copy   BIBTEX

Abstract

Our current understanding of ‘fake news’ is not in good shape. On the one hand, this category seems to be urgently needed for an adequate understanding of the epistemology in the age of the internet. On the other hand, the term has an unstable ordinary meaning and the prevalent accounts which all relate fake news to epistemically bad attitudes of the producer lack theoretical unity, sufficient extensional adequacy, and epistemic fruitfulness. I will therefore suggest an alternative account of fake news that is meant as an explication rather than a traditional conceptual analysis of the term and that understands fake news solely from the consumer’s perspective. I will argue that this new account has the required theoretical unity, that it is epistemically highly fruitful, and that it is still very close to the ordinary usage. I conclude with addressing some of the main objections to this view.

Links

PhilArchive

External links

Setup an account with your affiliations in order to access resources via your University's proxy server

Through your library

Similar books and articles

What is fake news?Romy Jaster & David Lanius - 2018 - Versus 2 (127):207-227.
What is fake news?M. R. X. Dentith - 2018 - University of Bucharest Review (2):24-34.
Speaking of Fake News: Definitions and Dimensions.Romy Jaster & David Lanius - 2021 - In Sven Bernecker, Amy K. Flowerree & Thomas Grundmann (eds.), The Epistemology of Fake News. Oxford University Press. pp. 19-45.
The Problem of Fake News.M. R. X. Dentith - 2016 - Public Reason 8 (1-2):65-79.
Fake News: A Definition.Axel Gelfert - 2018 - Informal Logic 38 (1):84-117.
What is Fake News?Nikil Mukerji - 2018 - Ergo: An Open Access Journal of Philosophy 5:923-946.
(Fake?) News Alert: Intellectual Virtues Required for Online Knowledge!Paul Smart - 2018 - Social Epistemology Review and Reply Collective 7 (2):45–55.
"Fake News" and Conceptual Ethics.Etienne Brown - 2019 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 16 (2).
What’s New About Fake News?Jessica Pepp, Eliot Michaelson & Rachel Sterken - 2019 - Journal of Ethics and Social Philosophy 16 (2):67-94.
Epistemologia delle fake news.Tommaso Piazza & Michel Croce - 2019 - Sistemi Intelligenti 31 (3):433-461.
Stop Talking about Fake News!Joshua Habgood-Coote - 2019 - Inquiry: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Philosophy 62 (9-10):1033-1065.

Analytics

Added to PP
2020-06-08

Downloads
451 (#38,461)

6 months
91 (#40,517)

Historical graph of downloads
How can I increase my downloads?

Author's Profile

Thomas Grundmann
University of Cologne

References found in this work

No references found.

Add more references