• Research what has been called ‘fake news’ from the heat of the 2016 election campaign onward
• Compare how fake news is being utilized by various actors in social media and by government officials. Who generates fake news? How does it spread? What is it used for? What is the responsibility of major actors like social media platforms? How do the latter respond to the challenges?
• Check how media analysts treat fake news of either kind. Find and review existing research on the topic
• Analyze how fake news affects the democratic discourse and meaningful citizen participation
• Try to predict what lies ahead for public discourse, and free and fair democratic elections, if fake news keeps spreading
The paper may have the following approximate structure:
1. Introduction (Set out key points to be discussed and your overall argument)
2. Sources of analysis (Point to existing primary sources – social media of any kind – and any scholarly or analytic literature – books, journals, serious press content – that you identified, and then establish the subset of content you analyze yourself, the corpus you base your arguments on)
3. Analysis, findings, evidence (This is the most substantial section where you present your arguments)
4. Conclusion (Summarize your results and repeat your overall argument; point out what else could/should be done to further elucidate the topic)
5. Media listing (Provide a detailed list of sources that you used in the analysis: exact titles, online addresses, or links – as appropriate)
6. Reference (Provide a list of titles from the scholarly/professional literature used)
