{"id":53353,"date":"2022-04-05T09:57:18","date_gmt":"2022-04-05T13:57:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/?p=53353"},"modified":"2022-04-07T14:31:01","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T18:31:01","slug":"fake-news-work-culture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sogolytics.com\/blog\/fake-news-work-culture\/","title":{"rendered":"Culture and Credulity: Putting Fake News Out of Business"},"content":{"rendered":"

News – fake or genuine – comes at us from all directions, day and night, as part of the digital network integrated into our lifestyles. In some cases it hits a soft spot, creating an audience reaction and leaving considerable emotional residue long after the announcement has faded – even if interest is fleeting.<\/p>\n

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Point is, there’s so much audio and video variety through the channels to diverse populations that fake news – when it sticks – can have dire implications.<\/p>\n

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\"fake<\/p>\n

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This article provides a comprehensive overview of the fake news debate to put things into perspective. But, most crucially, it should give you the ability to receive broadcasts with a different mindset and weigh things up to distinguish between what’s accurate, half-true, and hot air.<\/p>\n

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What fake news is, and what it’s not<\/h2>\n

When you drill down misleading communications, we see three distinguishing traits:<\/p>\n

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  1. Stories that outright lie:<\/strong> In other words, figments of someone’s imagination that lead gullible people into a fabricated reality.<\/li>\n
  2. False stories that come disguised as fact:<\/strong> Communicators springboard it off something true, only to twist the conversation into distorted meanings and nuances.<\/li>\n
  3. Mislabeling accurate news as fake:<\/strong> This creates a wall of doubt around information previously accepted as reliable and significantly informative.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    When followers vest themselves so emotionally in a set of beliefs, it’s nearly impossible to convince them there are two sides to every story.<\/p>\n

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    Because “they” said so<\/h2>\n

    In the democratic world, we encourage liberal expression of viewpoints. Indeed, social media platforms depend on it, spurring almost anyone to share their thoughts. But opening the floodgates can let forth a slew of uncoordinated views, allowing them to wash over people, and when those views reinforce existing beliefs – valid or not – viewers are content with glibly repeating things like “they confirm this\u201d or \u201cthey deny that”. Why? Because, of course, “they” implies authoritative sources, and that’s all that counts.<\/p>\n

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    \"fake<\/p>\n

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    There’s an assumption that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube, being billion-dollar public entities, have the stature and, therefore, a level of integrity we should take for granted. That’s not exactly how it works, to put it bluntly. Free expression means anything goes, and listeners must exercise extreme caution when assessing the source. The trouble is that most of the time, they don’t.<\/p>\n

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    Andrew M. Guess, Brendan Nyhan, Jason Reifler (Princeton, Dartmouth, Exeter) conducted a relevant study<\/a>. They discovered that more than a quarter of the American population (over 90 million) visited at least one fake news website over one-and-a-half months during the 2016 presidential election. So, it’s hard to believe that the eventual outcome had nothing to do with distorted information swinging votes firmly into one camp or another.<\/p>\n

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    Moreover, word can spread like wildfire once a false headline is out.\u00a0 Sorting out fact from fiction becomes an impossible task as counter-arguments pop up with as much emotional conviction trying to swing opinions back on track.<\/p>\n

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    Fake news in the workplace?<\/h2>\n

    Even in reading this article, you’re quite right to ask, “Where is this information coming from?” So, before I give you some mind-blowing statistics, I want to profile their source – Leadership I.Q.<\/a> The latter offers groundbreaking research under the direction of Mark Murphy – a New York Times bestselling author and a regular contributor to Forbes. Although his study occurred in 2017, the ramifications are still pertinent today. It covered 3,272 respondents from leadership positions in the professions and business – representing community frontrunners.<\/p>\n

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    Remember that harmony in the workplace depends on mutual trust, tolerance, and respect for team skills and talents. Coordination may collapse if staff believe it’s no longer necessary to back up reports with credible sources. Even if they do, many in the team declare they don’t think the data is valid – dismissing it as “fake news.” These are alarming signals. Mark Murphy’s study found trends that gravitated severely against the fundamentals of a stable internal environment:<\/p>\n

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