I recently started asking students to examine how creators of fake news use fragments of truth as a rhetorical technique to strategically design misinformation that is intertextual, sticky, and extremely spreadable. I want students to recognize how fake news conjoins to a larger intertextual network of alternative facts in the media. Fragments of truth are actual facts that have no direct connection to a particular piece of fake news but they can represent the fabrication if there is an existing set of interchangeable signs and signifiers already circulating in the media that both the falsehood and the fact can signify.…
Author: Dan Martin
Dan Martin
Dan Martin is an Associate Instructor of Writing and Rhetoric at the University of Central Florida where he teaches a variety of writing courses. His research focuses on digital and multimodal writing, FYC, and WAC.