Text types in the news Flashcards
What are fake news?
They are false stories that appear to be news, spread on the internet or using other media, usually created to influence political views as a joke
Are fake news a new thing?
No, it’s been around for many years
What is Yellow Journalism?
It is a term coined in the 1890s that describes sensational news that is not well-researched but instead strives to be eye-catching to sell more newspaper
What’s the purpose of fake news? (4)
- Making money (through advertising, engagement and monetization)
- Agenda (Putin’s Russia employing media resources to undermine leading US political figures)
- Joke
- Slander (purpose of damaging reputations)
What are the five categories of fake news?
- False (stories completely made up, traditional category, deliberately fabricated to look real);
- Misleading (no truth but promote an agenda);
- Slanted/biased (contain truthful elements but omit stuff, true news but in a biased way, Fox News);
- Manipulated (content manipulated or photoshopped);
- Humor (purposefully fake with no intention to cause harm but people can be fooled)
What’s a fake news headline like?
It contains many capitalized words, more proper nouns but fewer nouns owerall and fewer stop-words. Real news headlines are shorter and contain longer and more technical words
How is the body of fake news vs actual news?
Real news put few details in the headline to arouse curiosity and more details in the rest of the article.
Fake news put as much information as possibile so that readers can share it without even reading it. They contain few details in the content of the article
What’s the double function that perform the headlines?
They inform and attract readers. The informative function can be divided into referential and framing function
What is the referential function in headlines?
It provides a description or illustration of what is being written/spoken about
What is the framing function in headlines?
It is the interpretative function, the representazion of what is being written/spoken about highliting certain aspects and downplaying others
How do headines have to be in order to attract readers?
They have to be concise but also informatively vague, engaging and recognisable
Make some examples of distinctive language of headlines
Flame lit as Games begin
Let the Games begin – and keep your fingers crossed
Things can go downhill very fast
Dopes on the slopes
What are some attention-seeking strategies? (4)
Omission of words
The use of short, loaded words
Noun phrases and Nominalization
The use of gimmicks
What words get abbreviated in headlines?
Function words with no intrinsic meaning such as: articles, relative pronouns, determiners, auxiliaries, titles…
Content words, necessary to express meaning, are never omitted
Use of gimmicks in puns, how can they be explained?
Homophones (site-sight)
Homonyms (more than one meaning)
Intertextuality (film or book titles, songs)
Metaphor
Alliteration (repetition of sounds)
Rhyme
