Fake News with Appeal to Emotion

Fake News with Appeal to Emotion

On this link is the fake news story with images from Getty Images, showing people holding signs that advocate against hate crimes against Asians concerning COVID-19. The claims were that people who witnessed the two crimes chose not to help the women from their assailants. However, these claims were rated fake from the investigation conducted.

I chose to represent this fake news with an appeal to emotions expressed as follows in logical form;

Claim X is made without evidence.

In place of evidence, emotion is used to convince the interlocutor that X is true.

My exaggerated perspective of the fake news is as follows;

Since the origin of COVID-19 was made public, cases of hate crimes against Asians have been on the rise. Most people assume that Asians are the virus source, with thoughts that the virus’s level of infections and deaths will decrease once they leave. However, this is a backward perspective that contributes to the violence that Asians are put through.

The claim following the incident involving 65-year-old Vilma Kari stated that no one who witnessed her attack helped her in that time of crisis, as was the case in Kitty Genovese’s case. These cases are unfortunate indeed, as not only was Vilma Kari, a 65-year-old woman but she was also attacked in the presence of her daughter. The daughter had to witness the assault as no one came to their aid, even though they saw it. In Kitty Genovese’s case, the attacker fled once, then came back, raped her, and continued stabbing her after he was scared off. Witnesses to the crime would have helped her after the initial stabbing. Instead, she was left out there, where the assailant found her and raped her. In these cases, people could choose to help, but instead, they stood by and watched it happen.

By doing this assignment, I learned that situations are not always as they appear; audiences can be convinced of or manipulated into believing different versions of a case using various appeals.

References

“Appeal To Emotion”. Logicallyfallacious.Com, 2021, https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/logicalfallacies/Appeal-to-Emotion.

Lee, Jessica. “Was An Asian American Woman Attacked On NYC Street But No One Helped Her?”. Snopes.Com, 2021, https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/asian-attack-nyc-kitty-genovese/.

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At the present time, the pernicious use of disinformation is rising. It’s all around us: on social media, in advertisements, and especially amid electoral politics.  “Disinformation tries to raise … support by deliberately spreading falsehoods. It might describe an event that didn’t happen or which happened differently than how it is described. It might accuse a person or group of doing something they did not do. It might warn of a threat from an enemy or a source of danger that does not exist or which, in reality, is fairly trivial. It might discredit or divert attention away from well-evidenced facts or well-documented historical realities.

Disinformation is often extremely difficult to identify, at least at first. It often requires a lot of research, a lot of courageous questions, and a lot of time to pass before the reality is revealed.” (Myers, B., Elsby, C., Zieba, A. [2017]. Propaganda and Disinformation. In Clear and Present Thinking [Second edition ed., pp. 166-167]. Gatineau, Québec, Canada: Northwest Passage Books.).

Fake news and disinformation also often employ bad arguments or fallacies. For this discussion forum assignment, you will start with a piece of fake news from the Snopes website and then creatively rewrite it to exemplify one of the fallacies we’ve studied in this unit.

Remember, these are fallacies of distraction, such as appeals to emotion (fear, pity, anger, spite, etc.), that are a type of argument that attempts to divert your attention and make you think with your heart — thus bypassing your brain!

Before we get started, here are some resources for you:

Fake News:

CBS released an article that warned people of the Fake News Websites going around. To read about them, please visit: CBSnews.com

Fact Check:

There are also several organizations and news sites that are dedicated to reporting the truth and pointing out the lies:

Factcheck.org politifact.com, fullfact.org snopes.com

List of fake news websites

Trusted news sites:

NPR

The New York Times Washington Post Reuters Democracynow.org

Assignment Instructions:

For this assignment, you will be offering your classmates an actual piece of fake news (or more, if you’re so motivated), presented first as it originally appeared, and then reimagined (or exaggerated) in the form of one of the fallacies in this unit, for example, a fallacy of emotion. In other words, your task will be to select a story (or two) from the ‘Fact Check’ section of the Snopes website and present it in the form of a fallacy of flawed inductive reasoning that we learned about in this Unit. Use your creative juices to really stir up your readers!

Step 1. Look for some fake news that piques your interest. It doesn’t have to be the most current news, so be sure to scroll all the way down the page (there is a lot to choose from!). Fact Check’ section of the Snopes website

Step 2. On the Discussion Forum, briefly explain and provide a link to your news story. Give us a little background, especially how it was determined, whether it was true or fake.

Step 3. Select one of the logical fallacies from this list (be sure to review the definition, the logical form, and the examples):

Appeal to fear: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/32/Appeal-to-Fear Appeal to emotion: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/29/Appeal-to-Emotion

Appeal to anger: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/20/Appeal-to-Anger Appeal to pity: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/39/Appeal-to-Pity Appeal to spite: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/211/Appeal-to-Spite Straw Man: https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/169/Strawman-Fallacy Red Herring:

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/150/Red-Herring Ad Hominem (abusive):

https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/1/Ad-Hominem-Abusive Ad Hominem (guilt by association): https://www.logicallyfallacious.com/tools/lp/Bo/LogicalFallacies/10/Ad-Hominem-Guilt-by- Association

Step 4. Creatively reimagine or exaggerate your fake news in light of one logical fallacy. Be creative: what might someone think or say about who holds this particular position? How would they argue? What would they say? Then, use the Logical Fallacy form to guide your argument reconstruction. This is a creative writing assignment, so go ahead and be bold!

Step 5. Briefly reflect on your reaction to this assignment. What did you learn, and what is your overall takeaway?

Step 6. Read and respond to two other students’ posts. Engage them in a conversation about the content of the fake news as well as their logical fallacies.