Gender biases in fake news : how is gender employed in fake news against female candidates?

• Autor(a) principal: Gama, Marta Vitorino Moreno Sanches da
• Data de Publicação: 2021
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10400.14/37069
• topic: Domínio/Área Científica::Ciências Sociais::Ciências da Comunicação

The objective of this study is to analyze how gender is employed in fake news against female candidates. Fake news is not an entirely new problem, however the internet has allowed for its extensive and quick diffusion, which presents new challenges. According to Shao et al. (2017) the widespread reach of fake news is a major global risk; in that it may affect election outcomes and threaten democracies. One of the ways an election result may be influenced, is if fake news containing gendered attacks against female candidates is widespread. Women pursuing high-level positions of power normally associated with men have often been the target of prejudice, because their candidacy goes against the gendered social norms still existent in our society (Manne, 2018). This leaves women in politics at a disadvantage from the beginning, given that men and women possessing the same attributes or carrying out the same kinds of actions may be perceived differently by voters or get a different reaction from the public (Manne, 2018). The 2016 U.S. presidential election, which was a turning point in terms of widespread concern over the impact of fake news in modern democracies, is used as a case study to investigate questions of gender biases in politics, and the portrayals of female candidates in fake news. This study uses a qualitative content analysis of over 100 fake news stories, independently verified as “false” by a fact-checking organization, that mention Hillary Clinton and/or Donald Trump, and that were spread in 2016, in order to identify potential gender-related patterns in the quantity, type or topic of the most shared fake news stories. The results of this study show that fake news content, disseminated during this time period, often played on gender biases already engrained in society to benefit or disparage different candidates. This study contributes to the fight against fake news, by helping show how gender is also being used in the fabrication of fake news content, to manipulate and influence social media users, and potentially impact election results. Existing gender stereotypes regarding political candidates seem to be used in fake news to hinder female candidates.