I am collecting data about #alternativefacts to be able to distinguish true and false news stories.
My top hashtag choices, in order are; #Snowden, #climatechange, and #alternativefacts. My number one choice, #Snowden, became an interest of mine a few weeks ago after seeing the movie based on Edward Snowden. I watched a few documentaries on him after watching the movie but would love to learn more about him and what he did. My second choice is #climatechange. The overwhelming fact that we are facing such a serious global warming issue causes me to think about the future. It is projected that climate change will cause the sea levels to rise so much that cities and even some islands will be completely submerged. I would love to use this class as a tool to learn more about the entire process. Finally, I have chosen #alternativefacts. I am intrigued by this one because of everything that is going on with our country. Donald Trump and his team have come up with this term basically sanctioning lying. I think it is insane that they can do this without more of a backlash. I would love to learn more about how this has become okay and what direction these alternations are going.
There are many news sources being mentioned such as The Huffington Post and CNN. Donald Trump is also tagged many times. #fakenews is used a lot. Many of the posts are either replying to or retweeting Michael Moore’s (@MMflint) tweet about new Dove antiperspirant mocking Trump. There is also a lot of twitter users retweeting @CanadianGreens tweet about the PMO. Many of the tweets also appear to be using #alternativefacts in a joking manner.
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#alternativefacts is trending all over the internet as Trump continues his early presidency. The hashtag and the topic are rather identical. Both are talked about together. The articles are almost entirely Trump related. It is as I expected mainly because the hashtag #alternativefacts is a new concept created by the Trump administration making it a new topic. This results in most searches being very recent.
After searching for #alternativefacts during the first four months of 2006, it becomes clear that the idea was not even created yet. The only articles that came up were from the San Fransisco Chronicle. There is no relevant news or any news at all. Since it does not come as a shock since the concept is so new, it does not change the way data is viewed.
In part 7. Pilot Study, it talks about the variability of key search words. They then talk about how active they were, searching for a correlation between key words and “austerity” and “crisis” over a periods of time. This is especially interesting for the hashtag #alternativefacts. This is because they are talking about trends over time but #alternativefacts is an idea merely a few days old. It really makes me question what a future student will find when using this hashtag. Or in the future will it still be a term used throughout the country.
Works Cited
- Zimmer, Ben. 2017. “A Clash of ‘Alternative’ and ‘Facts’” Wall Street Journal, February 1, sec. Articles.
- Stoker, Robert. 2017. “Yes, there are ‘alternative facts.’ That’s different from falsehoods.” The Washington Post. February 1, sec. News.
- Hartlaub, Peter. 2006. “Who needs comic-book villains when real ones lurk? Not Batman.” San Fransisco Chronicle February 2. sec. Entertainment.
- McAlpin, Heller. 2006. “A minister matures after his wife’s death” San Fransisco Chronicle February 2. sec. Article.
I like that you brought up the way this hashtag or phrase might be used in the future. It’s interesting to consider the media’s response to some blatantly false information coming out of this administration. I wonder whether the idea of “alternative facts” is really alarming people or more of a joke right now, and I wonder how it will transform.