Example 1: Donald Trump

During our recent Presidential election, Donald Trump refused to take a question from a CNN reporter during his press conference, criticizing the network for “fake news.” Trump followed the statement about fake news by telling the reporter his organization is terrible. The report claims that Trump has been “supported” and “cultivated” by the Russian government for years. The report was detailed by CNN and then published its entirety by BuzzFeed. “To get elected, politicians use propaganda to persuade voters. Often this involves the construction of messages that are oversimplified and that appeal to people’s existing beliefs and attitudes, sometimes exploiting their fears and prejudices.” (Hobbs 2) When Trump was asked about the BuzzFeed report he said, “It’s all fake news. It’s phony stuff. It did not happen. And it was gotten by opponents of ours, as you know because you reported it and so did many of the other people. It was a group of opponents that got together- sick people- and they put that crap together.” He referred to BuzzFeed as a “pile of garbage” and said that the publication would “suffer the consequences” for publishing the unconfirmed report. As the idea “fake news” becomes more difficult to define, we see through this example how propaganda is used negatively. Going back to the articles we had read, this really puts into perspective how fake news is being thrown around our world today. Just from CNN and BuzzFeed posting “fake news” turns people against Trump for that very reason, when in reality who’s to say it is actually true. According to Richard Alan Nelson, Propaganda is a form of purposeful persuasion that attempts to influence the emotions, attitudes, opinions, and actions of specified target audiences for ideological, political or commercial purposes through the controlled transmission of one-sided messages (which may or may not be factual) via mass and direct media channels.”