The Fake News Phenomenon in the Romanian Media from the Perspective of Journalists: Contexts, Practices, Trends

Abstract

The rise of fake news in the Romanian media emphasizes the factors that remain unknown about the alterations in the media landscape. It equally highlights the changes in the editorial policies, adapted to the post-truth public. The present qualitative research consists in an analysis of interviews conducted with well-known Romanian journalists regarding the characteristics and the socio-political effects of the fake news phenomenon. The interviewed journalists scrutinize the Romanian media in relation to the emergence of fake news, its forms and contexts of intensification and the influence of the online disinformation on the credibility of the national press. They argue that fake news is primarily used in the media as a weapon in the political struggle and its manifestations become most visible in times of socio-political crisis or in electoral confrontations.

Keywords

• disinformation
• media polarization
• post-truth
• contexts