News Sites and Fake News in the Egyptian Political Transformation 2013–2014: Aljazeera.net case study
Abstract
Online activities allow users to benefit from, and engage with, news and information in a more complex way than was possible with old news settings. However, many have expressed concerns about the effects of false news stories, or ‘fake news’, circulated largely via online services on public view. This study examines the news sites’ behaviour and the attitudes of elite Egyptian academics towards information provided by the aljazeera.net news site during the Egyptian political conflict and the transformation from former President Mohamed Morsi to current President Abdul Fatah el-Sisi. A total of 450 elite academics were surveyed online to evaluate news and information about the political conflict and the transformation in Egypt through focusing on how they became informed about such news, their perceptions of news via the aljazeera.net site and their evaluation of whether the network has misused information regarding this period. The results indicated that the aljazeera.net site used different, false and ‘fake news’ techniques mainly in support of the pro-Morsi position during the transition to el-Sisi. Respondents indicated that misinformation was clearly provided by aljazeera.net in different formats, though some highlighted the importance of accessing news from online sources. Respondents indicated that online content can be easily spread among users with no significant third-party filtering, fact checking or editorial judgment. This raises questions about who becomes the arbiter of truth.
Keywords: Fake News, Misinformation News, Online News Sites, aljazeera.net, Mohamed Morsi, Abdul Fatah el-Sisi, News Propaganda, Social Networking Sites, Online Audiences
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