Fake News, Knowledge Management and Volkswagen case study

Case Study , 2018 , 8 Pages , Grade: 70.0%

Business economics - General

Publishing articles, reports with the intention of misinforming others has being around for centuries. Business firms have established position to make statements about social worlds that function as true such as press releases and annual financial reports. Thus, information published by these companies are treated with high degree of trustworthiness which in return companies use to mislead customers, investors and Governments in order to maximize profit. The essay will look at the recent Volkswagen scandal as a case study.

Fake News, Knowledge Management and Volkswagen case study

The term Fake News has become a popular term in political discourse since the 2016 presidential election in the US. the term has been popularised by then presidential candidate and current president of the US to discredit stories published by main stream media that were critical of him and his administration. To phrase differently, he was telling is supporters not to trust what is published in the media if they were critical of his administration because they are false. Fake news is defined as “news articles that are intentionally and verifiably false” (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017 p213) to mislead the readers. However, the term has been vaguely used to describe anything from outright fabrications, unintended mistakes and in some cases true stories to discredit it. Being critical of the media and sceptical about the ‘truth,’ objectivity and accuracy of its accounts of events, the reliability of facts and motivations and intentions of journalists is something that have existed in the past (McNair, 2017). However, with the age of internet, sensational, eye catching, and inaccurate headlines aimed at retaining the attention of the audience has become more prevalent with the use of social media and twitter and has amplified the reach and the impact of misinformation (Figueira and Oliveira, 2017). (Figueira and Oliveira, 2017). Contents such as news articles can be relayed to millions of active users of social media platforms without significant third-party filtering, fact checking or editorial judgement (Allcott and Gentzkow, 2017). Social media platforms provide a megaphone to anyone who can attract followers in some cases an individual with no track record or reputation can have as many readers as for New York Times or CNN (Lazer, 2017) this enables individuals armed with technical, social and political knowledge to disseminating large volumes of disinformation.

In order to defend ‘truth,’ we must first agree that truth exist and can be known. To classify some media reports as false and others as true, people often rely on enlightenment concepts such as reason, warranting evidence and objective truth. These concepts have been controversial and, in some cases, rejected in academia (Anderson, 2017). Foucault (1976) for instance rejected the any notion of objective truth because he understood objective truth as hegemonic strategy designed to preserve the privilege of those in power. others argue objectivity exists but would be impossible to know it objectively as our biases and beliefs impose filters on our perception of reality. therefore, in practice no one can be relied upon who can be in an authoritative position to provide an objective truth (Anderson, 2017). Therefore, no such thing as objectivity; but there exist billions of subjectivities (Anderson, 2017). Therefore, the concept of objective truth is unknowable, or it is merely a political tool. Trump would agree with latter as he positions himself as an anti-establishment movement that is growing in the US and in Europe, and the stories published about him are published by people in power (deep state) are fake news so as to construct a reality that promotes and preserves the interest of those in power.

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• College: University of Leicester
• Grade: 70.0%
• Author: Farah Shire (Author)
• Publication Year: 2018
• Pages: 8
• Catalog Number: V441838
• ISBN (eBook): 9783668837263
• ISBN (Book): 9783668837270
• Language: English
• Tags: knowledge management and fake news and Volkswage