News coverage has been the focus of attention for many researchers in linguistics and communication studies. It is especially relevant nowadays when the expression “fake news” is drawing much attention. The issue of fake news and the following problem of trustworthiness in media continue to receive interest not only from the general public and journalists. It is also a crucial matter for politicians and the digital industry. In this report, the main emphasis will be put on analyzing the writing style of fake news, i.e., the linguistic form of text rather than its semantics.
First of all, intentionally deceptive articles, headlines, and social media posts may appear for a number of reasons. Sometimes articles are created with the purpose of influencing elections. In some cases, they might contribute to an informational war between states. Other reasons include aiming at raising or lowering someone’s reputation. Finally, writing fake news is mostly about earning revenue. The intention is for the fake news to spread without readers taking the time to verify it properly. Journalists rely on attention-grabbing language and flashy vocabulary. Moreover, it is important to remember that outbreaks of false news are often initiated by recent events. They are written and then shared on the Internet among the audience who is expected to believe them.
As with any text analysis, fake news analysis requires a cross-functional, cross-linguistic, or cross-theme study. Having a reliable method of identifying fake news is essential. The primary cause of this issue is that in terms of stylistics, fake news imitates reliable reporting. For this reason, in recent years, several researchers have been trying to develop the stylistic features of fake news. For instance, Zhou and Zafarani (2018) have discovered some stylistic aspects of misleading content.
According to them, much like when false information is investigated from a knowledge-based viewpoint, exploring a hoax from a style-based viewpoint also accentuates examining the media content (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018). Nevertheless, knowledge-based research focuses on the evaluation of the accuracy of the news, while style-based research deals with the estimation of news intention. Therefore, the main question of stylistics regarding fake news is if there is a purpose of deceiving the public or not.
While the advancement of style-based false news studies research is not fully developed, as there is a limited amount of correlated studies, the analysis of means of stylistic expression, which are used in public deception, has long been an operational field of studies. It is evident that specialists do not have an effective method of distinguishing between facts and lies yet, but there are particular style-based features that should be taken into consideration.
The researchers identify three deception style theories. They include deception style theory which elaborates on how content style can help investigate deceit. The next theory explores style-based characteristics and patterns that can identify deception. The last theory examines deception detection tactics and how style can be used to recognize fake news and other kinds of false information (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018, p. 13). Intuitively, the style of deceptive news that aims to provide false information to readers should, to some extent, deviate from the truth. It is usually filled with exaggerated expressions with the purpose of creating strong emotions.
As for style-based features, the researchers present a variety of them. Attribute-based linguistic characteristics, otherwise known as theory-based language qualities, are mainly created based on the corresponding above-mentioned deception theories. In accordance with their study, attribute-based linguistic features that characterize the content style can be classified into ten groups. They include “quantity, complexity, uncertainty, subjectivity, non-immediacy, sentiment, diversity, informality, specificity, and readability” (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018, p. 15).
While attribute-based linguistic characteristics are considered pertinent, interpretable, and expectable, they usually lack quantifying misleading content style in contradiction to structure-based characteristics. Attributed-based aspects frequently require some supplemental levels of measurement or computing. Needless to say, it can take some time, despite its importance, to appropriate feature evaluation and filter for misleading information.
Structure-based characteristics present content style on four linguistic levels. They include lexicon, syntax, semantic, and discourse (Zhou & Zafarani, 2018, p. 15). At the lexicon level, the primary purpose is to evaluate the frequency data of letters and words in a text. At the syntax level, all tasks are carried out by parts of speech that facilitate their marking and reviewing. Regarding the semantic level, such factors as Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count are commonly utilized to produce semantic classes for each semantic characteristic.
Regarding the theory of deception detection strategies, it must be noted that the main approach to style-based deceit discovery is to use a feature vector portraying the style of the fake article in an automatic learning framework to see whether the given information is misleading. In view of the fact that fake news sources commonly draw attention to a brief financial or political objective, they mostly use an informal and emotional style of narration. A headline on a front page may state one fact, but then the body of the article presents completely different information. Internet users even created a special word for this type of deceptive headline, which is clickbait. Such headlines quickly grab the attention to interest the reader in clicking the article.
While the theories above provide some insights into the stylistic nature of fake news, it is evident that a more thorough investigation is crucial for a complete understanding of the topic. Examining the content style of fake news, however, may radically differ from studying deceit in other kinds of written information. While the theories can assist in analyzing misleading records, they are not immediately oriented toward fake news. Further studies in stylistics are needed to discover and research ways to detect a lie from the truth.
The goal of this paper has been to thoroughly and attentively study the current stylistic means of distinguishing fake news from real news. In conclusion, it would appear that the trustworthiness of news articles can indeed be evaluated based on the style they are written in, though this is not a foolproof approach.
Reference
Zhou, X., & Zafarani, R. (2018). Fake news: A survey of research, detection methods, and opportunities. Web.