Fake News: The Transformation of Propaganda in the Information Society

Title: Fake News
Subtitle: The Transformation of Propaganda in the Information Society
Subject Classification:  Society and Culture, Language and Linguistics, Politics and Government  
BIC Classification: JF, CF, JP
BISAC Classification: SOC052000, LAN004000, POL049000
Binding: Hardback, Paperback, eBook
Publication date: Oct 2026
ISBN (Hardback): 978-1-83711-115-2
ISBN (eBook): 978-1-83711-116-9
ISBN (Paperback): 978-1-83711-117-6

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Description

This new book explores the constitution of fake news as a type of discourse, and as socio-communicative phenomenon. The first part deals with the epistemological analysis of fake news which is differentiated from ‘lies’ or ‘false news. Unlike false news, fake news describes real facts partially falsified. The origin of fake news origin lies in the discursive structure of news, and flourishes in the information society where “news” becomes the most popular type of discourse. As a social process fake news consisted of three interconnected pillars; the real facts, the faked facts, and the public’s views on reality (and therefore on faked facts). Hence fake news becomes a main vehicle of propaganda, and a structural phenomenon in politics, business and other fields.

The second part of the book focuses on the sociological analysis of fake news, as conditions which facilitate its flourishing are analyzed: a) the new mode of communication and the internet, b) polarization in domestic and international affairs and the need for more and more propaganda c) the crisis of ideology/ideologies and the slipping of meaning to an ideological or a broader ideational eclecticism, d) commercialization and the need for more promotional activities, e) changes in the structure of news narratives especially in new media.
The third part describes the typology of fake news. It analyses the main techniques that are been used in the falsification of facts in news stories. The combination of these techniques can lead to more than 134 million types of fake news. Only a part of these exists nowadays. It’s a matter of socio-cultural and political conditions whether more and more types of fake news will appear in political, commercial etc. communication.

Biography

Author(s):  George Pleios is a Professor at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece.

Reviews

"Prof. Pleios’ new book is a long-needed intellectual revelation helping us cope with the havoc of fake news we live in. The book starts with the acknowledgement that “A new world has been emerging for some years now in the information sphere. ...This world is a world of fake news, where information about current events that have taken place is mixed with information about events or aspects of events that have not taken place but are instead the product of invention/fiction.” The author reports the finding of his study of fake news as a peculiar type of content and public discourse, and at the same time a sociological study of fake news as a social phenomenon. The original aspect is the book’s refusal to treat the current wave of fake news as an external assault on “Authentic journalism”. Instead, it provides an internalist diagnosis: the structure of news—its intrisic mixture of event-description with selective interpretation—contains the affordances through which falsification can be made “natural”, especially in the current vain of intensive visualization of information. The book convincingly shows how a contemporary mode of communication, plus an interpretive framework saturated with publicly valid prejudices and stereotypes, and the evolution of hybrid narrative forms mutually reinforce one another until the important delineation between journalism and propaganda is almost nullified. The findings of the study are skillfully illustrated by intriguing examples of a huge spectrum of fake news. This is not a textbook which would teach us how to stay safe and sane in the information society flooded by fake news; rather it is a guide how to navigate our way through the vicissitudes of contemporary Scylla and Charybdis hidden in our public communication."
- Prof. Georgi Dimitrov, Department of European Studies, University of Sofia