Cory Doctorow takes an interesting perspective in his post ‘Fake news is an Oracle: How the falsehoods we believe reveal the truth about our fears and aspirations‘ (the post also refers to the Locus column ‘Cory Doctorow: Fake News Is an Oracle‘. He considers fake news as the emergence of a collective subconscious issue.
Cory Doctorow analyses in detail the myth of science-fiction literature being deemed to be predictive of actual evolution of society. Of course it has an influence, but Cory Doctorow concludes that it is more like a revealing medium for our hidden subconscious collective aspirations and fears. And, he concludes, so are fake news: if they prosper, they do reflect at some point collective fears and aspirations.
Cory Doctorow continues to show that the fact that the anti-vaccination movement and its fake news is so popular has a point in demonstrating that there is an issue about big pharma and its control, beyond the reaction on vaccines themselves.
His view hence is that “Fake news is an instrument for measuring trauma, and the epistemological incoherence that trauma creates – the justifiable mistrust of the establishment“. Therefore, according to him the issue is to “address the underlying corruption that is rotting our society“.
I believe that fake news and other conspiracy theories have always been around, and are just easier to spread. Still I agree with Cory Doctorow that they are revealing subconscious and more conscious issues and are thus interesting to examine and consider. And the core issues once identified certainly need to be addressed.
