#WOKE: Wait, Where Did All the Fake News Go?
After reading Breitbart’s article Advertising Industry Calls on Tech Giants to Censor “Hate” and “Fake” News I was able to make some deep critical analysis in order to understand why the article became so successful.
The article is constructed in a way that people scrolling through social media will be able to read. It is a condensed version of The Telegraph’s article Unilever threatens to pull marketing spend from platforms failing to tackle fake news. That article goes into more depth about Unilever pulling their advertisement from Facebook. It explains why the decision was made and how it directly affects Facebook. By providing a condensed version, Breitbart clearly shows that they know their audience. Usually when scrolling through social media you don’t want to be bombarded with pages upon pages of writing. Along with that, their headline that was used for the article attracts readers. Using key words like “Hate” and “Fake” instantly causes people to look at what the article is about. Also, by making their feature picture of Mark Zuckerberg readers automatically know that this article has a tie to Facebook. This tactic was smart because, as this article was posted on Facebook Breitbart clearly know that their audience cares about Facebook and what happens with it. This shows that Breitbart knows their audience and how to attract readers. Knowing their audience greatly relays to the type of advertising that was seen on their page.
A lot of the advertising Breitbart’s page was for their own official merchandise or other articles that may interest particular readers. However, what I did find is that these articles were clearly related to myself. The majority of the articles had something to do with the area I live in, or things that I have recently looked into. So that leads me to believe that everyone who views this article will have different advertisements. I know some people don’t like the use of cookies, however I rather have a browsing experience that is directly related to my interests. At first, I liked how the advertisements were for things I cared about and may be interested in. However, upon looking into the articles posted I found that website they were posted on didn’t seem to be reliable news sources. This caused me to be slightly irritated that I was reading an article about fake news while being advertised fake news. I don’t mind the use of cookies when it relates to real news and things that I interest. But when the advertisements are for fake news I feel that I have wasted my time, and I probably would not return to that website again.
From the comments on Facebook and the article itself, Breitbart’s readers seemed to have mixed feelings about this article. Some liked the idea of getting rid of fake news, while others argued that Facebook shouldn’t be able to decide what is and isn’t fake news. However, I did realize that everyone held one common reaction — turning this posting into a political debate, most relating to American politics. While reading the comments I found that they completely deviated from the articles contents, to simply arguments about politics. Many had something to say about free speech, and whether or not they believed that it was beneficial.
I believe that this article was able to perform so well simply because it was able to provoke discussion. It grasped the attention of two clearly divided groups, and thus was able to reach an even larger audience. By sticking to one target audience, the article would not reach as many people. But, as this article was clearly divided by those who agreed and those who disagreed, it was able to expand and reach to an even larger audience. Breitbart wrote it in a way that caused people to automatically know the contents, even if they just skimmed it. It was clearly constructed for the social media users. This made it easy for millions of people to access, opposed to articles primarily written for print. Personally, I think Breitbart’s readers have many different views and opinions simply based on their comments. Having these different views automatically provokes discussion, which automatically causes more viewers. This causes an exponential growth in success. Along with that, from reading the comments on other postings I think Breitbart’s audience is politically driven. This is because every posting, regardless of the topic, is brought back to politics. This causes the success of the article to grow, because upon seeing the comments people who are interested in politics will want to read the article in order to be able to contribute to the debate. The main reason for the success is simply because Breitbart knows its audience and they know how to attract as much attention as possible.
