ABSTRACT
Today, media consumers are being routinely exposed to deliberately manipulated headlines in the news. And while some will argue that false or exaggerated new stories are as old as journalism itself, today's instant communication tools – email, blogging, and social media like Facebook, Twitter and SnapChat – make it possible to compose, publish, and sway mass opinion in the time it once took to ink a press. The discussion about "fake news" intensified in the weeks before and after the 2016 election of Donald Trump, including a disputed BuzzFeed report suggesting that fake political news dominated real news in social media during the campaign. "Click bait" is a phrase now being used for news stories that are designed to get people to read them, even though they may be outrageous in their claims. While some fake-news purveyors may have a political purpose, quite often the goal is simply to deliver people to their advertisers.
