TY - JOUR

T1 - News on Fake News

T2 - Logics of Media Discourses on Disinformation

AU - Farkas, Johan

PY - 2023

Y1 - 2023

N2 - This article presents a qualitative study of media discourses around fake news, examining 288 news articles from two national elections in Denmark in 2019. It explores how news media construct fake news as a national security threat and how journalists articulate their own role in relation to this threat. The study draws on discourse theory and the concept of logics to critically map how particular meaning ascriptions and subject positions come to dominate over others, finding five logics undergirding media discourses: (1) a logic of anticipation; (2) a logic of exteriorisation; (3) a logic of technologisation; (4) a logic of securitisation; and (5) a logic of pre-legitimation. The article concludes that fake news is constructed as an ‘ultimate other’ in Danish media discourses, potentially contributing to blind spots in both public perception and political solutions. This resonates with previous studies from other geo-political contexts, calling for further cross-national research.

AB - This article presents a qualitative study of media discourses around fake news, examining 288 news articles from two national elections in Denmark in 2019. It explores how news media construct fake news as a national security threat and how journalists articulate their own role in relation to this threat. The study draws on discourse theory and the concept of logics to critically map how particular meaning ascriptions and subject positions come to dominate over others, finding five logics undergirding media discourses: (1) a logic of anticipation; (2) a logic of exteriorisation; (3) a logic of technologisation; (4) a logic of securitisation; and (5) a logic of pre-legitimation. The article concludes that fake news is constructed as an ‘ultimate other’ in Danish media discourses, potentially contributing to blind spots in both public perception and political solutions. This resonates with previous studies from other geo-political contexts, calling for further cross-national research.

KW - Faculty of Humanities

KW - Journalistik

KW - Fake news

KW - Misinformation

KW - Desinformation

KW - Valg

KW - Valgkamp

U2 - 10.1075/jlp.22020.far

DO - 10.1075/jlp.22020.far

M3 - Journal article

VL - 22

SP - 1

EP - 21

JO - Journal of Language and Politics

JF - Journal of Language and Politics

SN - 1569-2159

IS - 1

ER -