blog




  • Essay / Researching Nietzsche and Baudrillard's Views on Fake News

    The information platform has evolved over the ages, from the printing press that came into existence around 1440 to the present day. We are now living in a new era where we have the Internet that connects people from all over the world, regardless of time and distance, in a short period of time. We cannot overstate how media influences people through various sources such as radio, television, social media platforms (Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, etc.). There are so many news channels and so much information published every day. Among these news, we can never know whether the news that has been published or communicated to people is reliable or not. Some sources may provide the facts, and some may even manipulate the facts in order to increase their viewership. In today's world, these media are more concerned with increasing their audience and profitability rather than getting the facts to people. At any given moment, you can't tell if the media is telling the truth or misleading people. One such source could be television, which has now specialized in providing “fake news” to the people. However, we cannot say whether “fake news” is bad or good, because it depends on the viewer and the media that broadcast the information. So how serious is the “fake news” problem? Let’s see what Nietzsche and Baudrillard would say about “fake news.” Say no to plagiarism. Get a Custom Essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an original essay More recently, however, fake news has become virtually available everywhere with legitimate news publishers such as National Report and Empire News flooding Internet of false stories. , it also has an impact on people and politicians. What makes viewers believe the news is the way this fake news is framed and headlined, which makes it more believable. While widespread fake news may not be a serious problem, it has had a real impact on people and has shaken the general public's trust in the media. For example, the news that the United States will destroy all nuclear warheads, Israel will dismantle settlements; Recognizing Palestinian statehood, Sarah Palin calls for invasion of the Czech Republic and Republican bill requires immigrants to "Americanize" their names. All of these headlines seem plausible to many readers because they were published on websites that looked like legitimate news agency sites and contained information that many people wanted to believe. But none of these stories were real. In contrast, fake news intentionally misleads readers and makes it difficult for people to differentiate between fact and fiction. Nietzsche, however, would have emphasized the relativity of knowledge, truth, belief systems, and moral systems in relation to different cultures and different historical places and times. In his view, "reason" is not entirely convincing as a vehicle for revealing truth, but perhaps it is the "idea of ​​truth" itself that is more problematic than how we reveal it. . He has a different view of the truth. Instead of looking for the complete truth, why not look for possibilities? In this context, perhaps he does not disapprove of fake news? It is possible that what is assumed or considered to be fake news sometimes turns out to be true. This ispossible in the way news is covered and transmitted to viewers. Nietzsche doesn't really believe in complete truth, but only in "perspective." He rejects the idea of ​​truth and says that there are no objective truths. Thus, what becomes truth is the perspective that prevails, and no perspective can be presented as an absolute truth. Perspective is just an individual subjective judgment about how things are and how people perceive them. These are people who first develop their views, beliefs, and biases, and then use rational philosophy as a means to justify their view. For example, two advertisements are shown at the same time. One is an advertisement for a chocolate milkshake and another is a strawberry milkshake. Each of the advertisements is so specialized in the way they try to convince people that their choice is better compared to another. One way or another, people will have a different point of view when it comes to the choices, but if one of the advertisements (let's say a chocolate milkshake) attracts more viewers and more reviews, then people will be led to believe it is the truth. Fake news gets attention because it is very difficult to know what is real news and if enough people support it, fake news can become real news. It is difficult for us to differentiate between fake news and truth because fake news itself becomes ambiguous. For example, in an advert it presents a picture that is perfect in every way and people might be manipulated by the fact that, yes, that is the picture. immutable perfect table and I should get one. But is this table really perfect? It may seem perfect considering the way it was presented to people in the advertisement, but in reality, this table needs to change in terms of colors and shapes. Another example of McDonald's advertisement, where they show you the biggest and most delicious Mac burger, but once you go to the store, you might find it completely different from the advertisement. Advertising may last a few weeks or months, but the store's menu will continue to change. Even after changing the store's menu over the years, it will still be McDonald's. So the point here is that whatever change in the menu and staff of the McDonald's it will still be called or considered as McDonald's but we know some things have changed in the process but no one cares about it really or talk about it. You can't even think about it unless you start thinking philosophically. Nietzsche also states that just as words are arbitrary, so are perspectives, and so is truth. For example, in a press release it is stated that "from 2018 there will be no more theft in any store or elsewhere, as security measures have been strictly implemented." This might create a stereotype in people's minds that there will be no more thieves, but is that really possible? Nietzsche would say that we cannot step out of our perspective, we can only accept what seems compelling to us, while knowing that it is not necessarily true in an objective or absolute sense. In Baudrillard's theory, he speaks of stimulation and hyper-reality. He's not really talking about truth but simulation, which is the assumption and expectations that people already have in their heads. Hyper-reality is the idea of ​​a world where everything is experienced through media, our impression of reality is in fact completely removed from actual reality. Instead, what represents truth is not true at all,because it is in the first place so disconnected from anything empirical. At first glance, this idea seems ridiculous, at least because it is very disturbing. One of the most popular references to Baudrillard's idea is the film "The Matrix" (in which a copy of the simulation is used as a prop). In the film, the world that seems real is soon revealed to be a simulation. A character quotes the book as a “desert of reality”. Despite its disturbing qualities and whether you accept Baudrillard's claim that there is no reality at all, it is easy to accept his observation. In a mediated world, in which everything is represented or reproduced rather than actually experienced, notions of veracity will soon come into question. Indeed, questioning reality is now a reality in itself. Baudrillard developed his theories on simulation before the Internet dominated information and media. Nonetheless, this makes his argument all the easier to support. Now, with a few tweaks, we can use a commercially available WordPress theme to make a website look as authentically current as The New York Times. Beyond that, Twitter and Facebook offer ready-made models for news production and distribution that make it ridiculously easy to claim to be real news producers. In the case of Facebook, the platform is said to be designed to promote self-referencing: uploading a video to the platform seems to generate more engagement than linking to it on YouTube, owned by Facebook's rival Google. Another example of simulation could be uploading Kim Kardashian's photo. The image we have of Kim Kardashian is different from reality. The way she is presented on social media is different from the real Kim Kardashian. We don't know what she's like in real life, but we have stimulation of her that selectively presents itself in some ways as more real than the real Kim Kardashian. Through this simulation, we are conditioned to think that the real Kim Kardashian is perfect as she appears on social media. This is all due to the way we think or the way people make assumptions about things. As Baudrillard said in his theory, this simulation is the assumptions or expectations that people make “before the fact.” Another good example of hyper-reality could be Disneyland. Disneyland is presented as imaginary to make people believe that the rest is real, while Los Angeles is no longer real but belongs to the hyperreal order and the order of simulation. Baudrillard wrote an article entitled "The Gulf War Did Not Happen" which was very controversial. In it he suggests that the media set the agenda for the war narrative, that the war we saw on television did not correspond to real events. The media does not show all the truths; therefore, it limits knowledge and power. Let's take another example: the United States lost the Vietnam War. The movies portray him as if they won, but the more we see of these depictions, the further away the truth becomes. When we look at celebrities, they are idealized and "hyperrealistic" because their reality is based on ideas that aren't real because people don't have perfect skin/huge butts, luscious hair, etc. When we see an advertisement on television or on social media, these advertisements are presented in such a way that what they show us seems so real, but in reality, they are all made up. For example, Dove's commercial, where the model wears a lot of makeup before the photo shoot and after..