The power of fake news: a triangulation study of the impact of fake news on the African National Congress (ANC) in Cape Town during the election period

Abstract

The core of fake news has surrounded itself amongst the greed for power and politics. It has become a political conspiracy in using technology, predominantly social media and fake news websites masked as authentic sources. Whilst fake news is largely about politics rather than journalism, the industry is becoming seriously tarnished (Daniels, 2017). The African National Congress (ANC) in South Africa has taken serious strain over the past decade with the political unrest in the nation. This is due to, but not limited to, the perceived poor leadership as well as rise of opposition parties within the country (Green, 2017). The rise of fake news in South Africa could further deter the brand image of the ANC with unfounded news articles circulating amongst the publics. The ANC has also been accused of using fake news as a weapon to undermine their opposition (Hansrod, 2017). But what is true and what is fake? The purpose of this study was, ‘to explore the influence of fake news on the ANC whilst assessing the correlational relationship between the ANC, consumer perceptions and behaviour of their brand’, which will be put under the spotlight in order to create a strong foundation for further research to be conducted. The main theory used in this study was the Media Dependency Theory. This theory is based on the Uses and Gratifications Theory and ties into the Agenda Setting Theory (Communication Theory, 2015) From the literature reviewed, the researcher discovered that as time has evolved, technology has revolutionized the world we live in and has impacted the political sector in the majority of the countries around the world. When reviewing the theories used within the study, it is ever apparent that individuals and political parties can take advantage of platforms such as social media to persuade large populations with carefully crafted messages. Fake news has become ever more apparent within the last year and its impact on society could be extremely detrimental in the short term by corrupting voter’s minds and misleading them.

The study has proven that since the inception of Fake News, individuals are susceptible to articles across all forms of mainstream media. Most individuals use the news to make important life decisions and can easily make the wrong decision based on an alleged Fake News article that they come into contact with.