International Journal of Communication 13(2019), 4353–4375 1932–8036/20190005
Copyright © 2019 (Kate Farhall, Scott Wright, Andrea Carson, Andrew Gibbons, and William Lukamto).
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution Non-commercial No Derivatives (by-nc-nd). Available at
http://ijoc.org.
Political Elites’ Use of Fake News Discourse
Across Communications Platforms
KATE FARHALL
RMIT University, Australia
ANDREA CARSON
La Trobe University, Australia
SCOTT WRIGHT
The University of Melbourne, Australia
ANDREW GIBBONS
The University of Texas at Austin, USA
WILLIAM LUKAMTO
The University of Melbourne, Australia
“Fake news” has become a global term since Donald Trump’s election as President of the
United States. President Trump adopted what we describe as a “discourse of fake news”
to attack and discredit news media and political rivals, which is suggested to have been
reproduced by politicians in other national contexts. This article investigates whether
Australian politicians adopt a fake news discourse. To do so, data are gathered over six
months after Trump’s election from four political communications fora : parliamentary
debates, social media (Facebook and Twitter), press, and politicians’ websites. We find
fake news discourse is predominantly the domain of conservatives. Frequent users employ
fake news discourse to delegitimize primarily the media, but also political opponents.
Australian politicians’ use of fake news discourse is rare, but it is amplified by news media.
Concerningly, it is seldom contested. We argue this has negative consequences for public
debate and trust in media and political institutions.
Keywords: fake news, political communication, media trust, Australian politics, journalism,
weaponization
Kate Farhall: katherine.farhall@rmit.edu.au
Andrea Carson: a.carson@latrobe.edu.au
Scott Wright: scott.wright@unimelb.edu.au
Andrew Gibbons: agibbons@austin.utexas.edu
William Lukamto: wlukamto@student.unimelb.edu.au
Date submitted: 2018‒10‒09
4354 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
Fake news circulated online extensively during the 2016 U.S. presidential election, leading to
speculation this might have influenced the result (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017). U.S. president-elect Donald
Trump weaponized this term, “fake news,” perhaps to initially undermine concerns about fake news during
the election campaign, and then to attack and discredit mainstream news media and political rivals (McNair,
2018, p. 91). This was exemplified in January 2017 at Trump’s first press conference as president-elect
when he shouted, “You are fake news!” at a CNN reporter, from whom he refused to take questions (Carson,
2017). Trump’s first tweet to specifically mention “fake news” appeared in December 2016, as stories about
online fake news became more prominent. In the next year, Trump used the phrase more than 160 times.1
Wardle and Derakhshan (2017) argue that the phrase “fake news” has been “appropriated by
politicians around the world to describe news organizations whose coverage they find disagreeable” (p. 5).
Although anecdotal evidence supports this, no systematic analyses exist of whether, and if so, how,
politicians beyond the U.S. might use the discourse of fake news. In the same way that the Americanization
of election campaigning was shaped by national cultures and political systems (Scammell, 1995), fake news
discourse may manifest distinctly in different locations. McNair (2018) argues that “fake news” can be used
in deliberate ways for strategic political ends, labeling this “weaponization” and asserting that the current
information ecosystem facilitates this strategic political usage.
The discourse of fake news can similarly be weaponized for political gain. Research shows that
political elites’ use of the term “fake news” negatively affects individuals’ trust in news media. This has
significant implications for liberal democracies, including for the coexistence of diverse perspectives, the
discussion of actual mis- or disinformation, media trust, and the democratic process, which relies on a wellinformed
citizenry (Brummette, DiStaso, Vafeiadis, & Messner, 2018; Van Duyn & Collier, 2018). This finding
underlines the importance of examining fake news terminology usage by political elites beyond the U.S.
This article addresses these issues by analyzing whether fake news is “weaponized” for political
ends by Australian politicians. It examines federal politicians’ use of the terms “fake news,” “post-truth,”
and “alternative facts,” which when combined, we argue form a fake news discourse. We contend that these
three terms comprise the discourse of fake news due to connections made among them in previous academic
work, and the relative simultaneity of their entry into public discourse (Brennen, 2017). Although nuanced
differences exist among the three, when weaponized they all indicate the untrustworthiness of their target
and result in the “production of confusion” (Cooke, 2017, p. 212).
To test for these phenomena, we apply content analyses over a six-month period following Trump’s
electoral victory to four fora of political discourse: parliamentary debates, social media (Facebook and
Twitter), daily mainstream press, and politicians’ websites. We find that fake news discourse is used
infrequently by a vocal minority of Australian politicians—mostly on the political right—primarily to attack
the media. Concerningly, we find that this political behavior is largely unchallenged by the subject of the
attacks: the media. This article is structured as follows: We build on broader literature around strategic
political communication involving politicians criticizing the media. We then examine current debates about
1
See Trump’s Twitter archive (http://www.trumptwitterarchive.com/).
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4355
fake news as concept and lexicon, before outlining our methods, data, and results. We conclude with
implications of our findings.
Attack the Dog
Attacking the media is an established political tactic (Crawford, 2006). Generally, politicians’
critiques of the media fall into two categories. The first targets media institutions and the culture they foster.
An example is Tony Blair’s (2007) famous speech where he argued the media were “like a feral beast just
tearing people and reputations to bits” (pp. 478–479). Or former Australian prime minister (PM) Malcolm
Turnbull calling for a shift from “aggressive” to “forensic” interviewing (Bourke & Whitbourn, 2015). The
second type of political criticism is designed to influence audience perceptions of the media. The discourse
of fake news fits this second strand. Research has suggested that “complaints about news coverage are at
least partly strategic,” and one possible reason “is that the criticisms represent an attempt by conservative
elites to cast doubt about the credibility of news media in the minds of voters” (Domke, Watts, Shah, & Fan,
1999, p. 55). Experimental findings have shown that “elite attacks [on the media] increase perceptions of
bias in the direction of the attack . . . even when no bias exists” (Smith, 2010, p. 332).
In practice, these two types of criticism overlap because they can affect both the public and
journalists. The inherent tension that Blumler and Gurevitch (1981) described between politicians and
journalists has arguably been exacerbated as politicians increasingly adapt to media logics motivated by
conflict, negativity, personalization, and market-driven news (Brants, de Vreese, Moller, & van Praag, 2010).
Politicians believe “their activities have to be geared toward the media,” necessitating “stable cooperations”
with journalists, while simultaneously creating a dependent relationship (Maurer, 2011, p. 44). However,
there has been a cultural shift away from this symbiotic relationship to one of
mistrust and cynicism. In [politicians’] perception, journalists are too event driven and too
eager for power struggles or for setting the political agenda themselves, and they are
interpreting political reality more than covering the political issues and policy decisions in
a substantial way. (Brants et al., 2010, p. 37)
Although the fractious relationship between politicians and journalists is longstanding, how
politicians attack the media and journalists in their public communications is understudied. Most existing
studies focus on how politicians attack each other (Ansolabehere & Iyengar, 1997); how the media “attack”
politicians (Lloyd, 2004); or on journalists’ and politicians’ attitudes toward each other (Brants et al., 2010).
We now turn to examine elite attacks on the media in the Australian context specifically.
Killing the Messenger in Australia
The relationship between Australian politicians and the media is a complex mix of incestuousness
and brazen attacks (Griffen-Foley, 2003; Tiffen, 1990). Research has focused on attacks on the national
broadcaster, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), particularly on accusations of bias from the
political right, echoing the “liberal bias” critique found in the U.S. (McNair, Flew, Harrington, & Swift, 2017).
Studies conclude that politicians “have deliberately used the accusation of bias to bully the ABC into taking
4356 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
a more conservative line,” and at times ABC management has been “strongly inclined to cooperate with
government” (Turner, 2005, pp. 98, 103).
In 2014, the ABC received sustained criticism by then conservative PM Tony Abbott who argued
the ABC was taking “everyone’s side but Australia’s” (Ireland, 2014, para. 1). Abbott reignited criticism after
Islamist Zaky Mallah asked a question of a government minister on the panel show Q&A, labeling this an
act of “betrayal” by the ABC and compelling government ministers to boycott Q&A (Ireland, 2014). McNair
et al. (2017) conclude these attacks were “close to a state of moral panic, albeit manufactured and politically
motivated” (p. 183). Turner (2005) argues that commercial broadcasters escape these political attacks,
despite surveys finding more Australians trust the ABC, as governments are “unwilling to offend them
unnecessarily” (p. 98). Although there is a long history of Australian politicians attacking the media, few
studies have investigated how they do so in the digital age. Although, Fuller, Jolly, and Fisher’s (2018)
analysis of former PM Malcolm Turnbull’s Twitter use captured evidence of this in passing.
This study focuses on the dynamics of fake news discourse, because it represents a recent addition
in elites’ lexicon. Brummette et al. (2018) described it as a “focal point in the current political debate” (p.
512). Others argue fake news confuses political debate, with discussions of “fake news” further complicating
political communications (Allcott & Gentzkow, 2017; Brummette et al., 2018). Furthermore, the simultaneity
of declining media trust and the rise of fake news suggests a potential interrelationship between the two
(Reporters Without Borders, 2019). As Van Duyn and Collier (2018) explain, “talking about fake news may
have wide-ranging consequences for whether individuals trust news media and the standards with which
they evaluate it” and by extension “democratic outcomes” (p. 3) It is also timely to study the discourse of
fake news because it “may encourage the dissemination of false information, particularly when fake news
is discussed by elites without context and caution” (Van Duyn & Collier, 2018, p. 3). These links among the
discourse of fake news, the proliferation of mis- and disinformation, and the health of democratic and liberal
media systems provide compelling reasons for a focused study on the “discourse of fake news,” using
Australian political elites as the case study.
Theorizing Fake News
Debates around the accuracy of reporting have ebbed and flowed since the sensationalist “Penny
Press” in the 1830s (Conboy, 2002; Mott, 1962). What distinguishes fake news in the digital age is the
volume, ease, and speed with which it can spread. The global network society enables disinformation to
move from the margins to the mainstream of the digitized public sphere, facilitating horizontal sharing of
information in place of top-down elite communication (Bennett & Livingston, 2018). Its viral spread is
expedited by the structure of online media platforms, their algorithms, search engine optimization
techniques, and the snowball effect on social media whereby “trending” topics gain more prominence
(McNair, 2018). These technological changes make it “more difficult for deliberate fakes to be proven wrong
in a way and within a time frame that persuades the broad public audience of their fraudulent or dishonest
nature” (McNair, 2018, p. 19).
However, the term “fake news” is hotly contested. Some consider it woefully inadequate because
of the complexity of the online “misinformation ecosystem” (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017, p. 12). Wardle
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4357
and Derakhshan’s coining of the term “information disorder” aims to encapsulate the broad range of
misinformation (unintentional false information), disinformation (intentional false information), and
malinformation (correct information used with intent to damage) that, despite important differences of
intent, is often inadequately termed fake news.
Although scholars have sought to theorize fake news’ proliferation and unpack homogenized
understandings of it, fewer studies seek to understand the way in which the discourse of fake news is
harnessed by political elites for strategic ends. However, Van Duyn and Collier’s (2018) experimental
investigation provides one example that assesses the impact of elites’ appropriation of this discourse. They
suggest it lowers trust in media, leads to less accurate identification of real news, and potentially leaves
people ill informed, eroding news media’s normative function (see Smith, 2010). Similarly, Brummette and
colleagues’ (2018) research into the proliferation of the term “fake news” online shows that it is “infectious
in homophilous networks” (p. 512), and that logic falls away, emotions are heightened, and politicization
increases with its usage.
To further unpack questions surrounding the use of fake news discourse by political elites in the
Australian context, we seek to understand how and when federal politicians deploy this language. Because
political discourse can vary by site/platform, party, and target audience (Kreiss, Lawrence, & McGregor,
2018), and can receive different degrees of contestation by different actors, we believe fake news discourse
may disseminate differently across these dimensions and thus explore this possibility in our analysis.
Specifically, we address three research questions:
RQ1: Do Australian federal politicians use fake news discourse, and if so, how does this vary between
different sites of political communication and political parties?
RQ2: If federal parliamentarians use fake news discourse, who do they target in their strategic political
communications?
RQ3: If fake news discourse is deployed, is it contested? By whom?
Methodology
Content analyses of different political communication fora were undertaken to detect Australian
federal politicians’ use of fake news discourse, operationalized here as the use of three terms: “fake news,”
“alternative facts,” and “post-truth.” We analyzed newspaper articles, politicians’ websites (which include their
press releases), transcripts of federal parliamentary debates, and social media (Facebook posts and tweets).
We collected data for six months following Trump’s election (November 8, 2016, to May 8, 2017) to understand
if Australian political elites deployed fake news terminologies following its political use in the U.S. Six months
was considered a reasonable time span to detect and examine political elites’ adoption of these terms.
The coding method categorizes politicians’ usage of fake news discourse by drawing on two
typologies of fake news content (Tandoc, Lim, & Ling, 2018; Wardle, 2017). Both typologies delineate
categories across a broad range of information disorder, including satire and parody; forms of misleading,
4358 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
imposter, or fabricated content; false connections or context assigned to content; manipulated content or
images; advertising in the guise of news; and political propaganda. We adapted these categories to develop
codes that classify the type of information disorder that a politician alleged had taken place.
Several classifications were not relevant to this study. For example, because we are interested in what
information disorder politicians allege has occurred, rather than the misinformation itself, we do not analyze
visual data. Therefore, we selected four applicable categories to develop our coding framework to detect and
measure the type of dis- or misinformation that elites allege occurs when they employ the discourse of fake
news. These categories were (a) satire, (b) misleading content, (c) imposter content, and (d) fabricated content.
Four actions were taken. First, we recorded descriptive data of “who” used “what” terminology,
“when,” and in what context.2
Second, drawing on the two existing fake news typologies, we analyzed how
politicians employed the discourse to denote one of the four forms of information disorder described above.
There was a subtle distinction between misleading and fabricated content that goes to personal intent, which
content analysis cannot detect, and thus we merged these categories and coded for whether a politician
was describing content as either misleading or fabricated. We also interpreted “imposter content” as
referring to whether a politician queried the validity or legitimacy of a source cited in a news report or other
communications. Third, we determined the target of the fake news language. In other words, was the
politician employing it to attack the media, political rivals, both, or neither? Finally, we examined if there
was evidence of the journalist or others immediately contesting the use of this pejorative language.
We used a two-step approach to collect the data. First, a preliminary survey of the Factiva news
archive was undertaken using the keyword “fake news” along with the names (and nicknames) of the 226
members of the 45th Australian Parliament. Politicians were ranked highest to lowest according to the
number of results of the search. This was done to identify those most often publicly associated with “fake
news.” This did not necessarily mean politicians were using this term, only that their names appeared within
articles/transcripts containing the keyword. This search returned 1,519 stories across the six-month period.
Because we sought to track the discourse of fake news across four political communications fora,
it was not within the scope of this project to analyze all Australian federal parliamentarians. Nor was this
seen as desirable, as “fake news” language was relatively new in the Australian context, and many politicians
did not engage with it. We focused on politicians registering 10 or more news articles including both their
name and the term “fake news” in the initial search. This search retrieved 1,254 stories involving 29 of 226
politicians. These 29 politicians (the most frequent users) formed our sample. As “fake news” is a nascent
term in political communications, it is unsurprising only about 10% of Australia’s federal politicians were
identified alongside the term in excess of 10 times.3
Almost half of Australia’s federal politicians returned
2
These descriptive data were recorded across 19 variables. Coding frame available here (https://www
.researchgate.net/publication/335109157_Political_Elites’_Use_of_Fake_News_Discourse_Across_Commun
ications_Platforms).
3
The 29 politicians were Malcolm Turnbull, Pauline Hanson, Chris Hayes, Tony Abbott, Bill Shorten, Scott
Morrison, Matt Canavan, Julie Bishop, Cory Bernardi, Barnaby Joyce, George Christensen, Peter Dutton, Nick
Xenophon, Eric Abetz, Mike Kelly, Rick Wilson, Josh Frydenberg, Christopher Pyne, Malcolm Roberts, George
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4359
zero hits in the Factiva search for the six-month period, indicating they most likely did not use the term
during that time. We investigated further by searching politicians’ names and “fake news” in Factiva in the
12-months before Trump’s victory to ascertain if use of the term by Australian politicians predated Trump’s
adoption of it. Significantly, our search returned zero reports of Australian politicians using “fake news” in
the Australian press before our study’s designated timeframe.4
For detailed analysis across different communications platforms, the second stage involved searching
the 29 politicians’ names alongside the expanded set of fake news discourse keywords, across several
communications platforms. The keywords were “alternat* fact*,” “fake news,” “post-truth*,” “post truth*” (no
hyphen), and #fakenews (no space) for the social media data. To meet our selection criteria, politicians had
to explicitly use these terms (e.g., were directly quoted); be reported as using the term (paraphrased usage);
or reported as agreeing with/refuting use of the term by others. Across all four fora, only 22 of 29 politicians
searched returned items meeting these criteria. From the first forum under examination—the mainstream news
media—this secondary search yielded 65 news stories involving 16 of our 29 politicians. We conducted an
intercoder reliability test of this data six months after initial coding, finding reliability on most variables. Our
lowest level of agreement was 85% for a variable describing story genre (e.g., political story, policy story, no
political or policy content). This variable returned an alpha score of 0.74 using Krippendorff’s alpha test. This
is considered above the minimum acceptable threshold (Krippendorff & Bock, 2009, pp. 354–355).
This search process was repeated to investigate each of the political communication fora of social
media, politicians’ websites, and the parliamentary Hansard database to understand if fake news language
is used differently in various political communication contexts. The core unit of measure was each individual
political communication (i.e., each news story, Hansard transcript, website page/document, Facebook post,
or tweet).
After cleaning the data to meet the search criteria, this yielded 152 distinct observations across the
four fora. To clarify, if the same incident involving fake news language was recorded in Hansard and then later
reported verbatim in a news source, these were recorded and coded separately. This was necessary to
understand how the discourse of fake news might travel across communication contexts. Given the notoriety
with which Trump’s Twitter feed drives traditional media commentary in the U.S., including duplicates thus
allowed us to investigate whether this agenda-setting function could be identified in the Australian context.
Data and Findings
Frequency, Agents, and Context of Fake News Discourse
The first observation is that some Australian federal politicians adopted fake news language after
the election of President Trump, but its usage was not widespread. Fake news discourse appeared most
Brandis, Doug Cameron, Sam Dastyari, Marise Payne, Richard Di Natale, Stephen Jones, Kelly O’Dwyer,
Derryn Hinch, David Leyonhjelm, John Williams.
4
Politicians’ names and “fake news” appeared together eight times, but the politician was not engaging with
the term.
4360 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
often in the news media, the only site involving a gatekeeper or intermediary. In other fora, where politicians
speak directly to their audience, they are less likely to employ this language. For example, of the 7,333
tweets and 5,509 Facebook posts collected during the six-month study, a meager few contained fake news
language from politicians (see Table 1). Australian politicians’ lower engagement with fake news language
on Facebook and Twitter in our data set is in contrast to the U.S. experience, where there is a strong
association between the discourse of fake news and social media (Brummette et al., 2018). Thus, we find
that politicians use fake news discourse not only to appeal to certain audiences (the public). The data also
suggest that this language is deployed to appeal to information gatekeepers themselves, who, as journalists,
may perpetuate and be drawn to terms like “fake news” because they are seen as newsworthy. We
investigate these platform-based distinctions further below and in the “Usage and Targets” section.
Table 1. Distinct Fake News Discourse Events by Forum.
Forum Facebook Twitter Websites Hansard Press Total
Number of distinct fake
news discourse events 10 40 23 14 65 152
Source: Authors.
The data highlight two notable peaks in politicians’ engagement with fake news language during
the six-month study: November/December 2016 and February/March 2017 (see Figure 1). These peaks
correlate with the parliamentary sitting calendar, showing that—unsurprisingly—the discourse of fake news
is more salient when parliament is in session.5
This tells us about directionality. Politicians set the news
agenda using fake news language, which is duly reported by the news media because it fits within media
logic considerations and is thus considered newsworthy. Two further spikes outside parliamentary sitting
time relate to specific “fake news” stories, furthering this “newsworthiness” hypothesis. A cluster of reporting
around the end of December 2016 (during recess) stemmed from an accusation by conservative National
Party senator Matt Canavan that ABC reportage of mining company Adani’s plans to build Australia’s biggest
coal mine was “nothing but fake news.” This comment attracted 10 days of coverage (December 22–31) by
half the nation’s 12 daily metropolitan newspapers—a big news story by Australian standards. The senator
maintained attention on the issue with an opinion piece published in the Murdoch-owned (center-right)
Australian and posted on his website, following up with two tweets.
5
Parliamentary sitting dates in 2016–17 were November 7–10, November 21–December 1, February 7–16
and March 20–30 (Parliament of Australia, 2016, 2017a).
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4361
Figure 1. Number of fake news discourse events per month, by platform. N =148. The first
week of May (n = 4) is not recorded here because it is an incomplete month. Source: Authors.
Who are the primary actors using the discourse of fake news? We find it is a noisy minority of
mainly White, male, right-wing politicians. Although use of the keywords appeared in 152 instances, only
22 politicians directly engage with these terms, 15 of whom are members of conservative parties (see Figure
2). Users of fake news discourse fell into two distinct categories: high-profile politicians who attract
significant media/public attention, or “fringe” politicians who tend toward sensationalistic behavior to attract
attention disproportionate to their vote share.
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
35
40
November December January February March April
No.offakenewsdiscourseevents
Number of fake news discourse events per month, by platform
Twitter Websites Hansard
Media Facebook Total
4362 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
Figure 2. Total number of instances of fake news discourse use, by politician. N = 22 MPs; N =
152 events. *MPs who use fake news discourse to refute it. LH = Lower House. All other users
from the Senate. Party codes: LIB = Liberal; AC = Australian Conservatives; NAT = National; ALP
= Labor; AG = Greens; PHON = Pauline Hanson’s One Nation; DHJP = Derryn Hinch’s Justice
Party; LD = Liberal Democrats; NXT = Nick Xenophon Team. For left–right alignment of parties,
see Figure 3. Source: Authors.
In the first category are MPs such as cabinet minister and National Party senator Matt Canavan,
and 29th Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull (the most prolific user) in the lower house. In the latter category
are the outspoken media users, all senators, such as populist, right-wing One Nation member at the time,
Malcolm Roberts.
The second spike, in April, stemmed from former conservative PM Tony Abbott. In a tweet, he refuted
a claim that he agreed to a charity boxing match with an opposition senator: “[The] story about me re-entering
the ring is fake news. Utter rubbish. Media should be ashamed of themselves” (Abbott 2017). Associated
reporting on this topic generated six press stories in different outlets, which is significant in light of Australia’s
media concentration, giving the story the potential for widespread audience reach. Importantly, these clusters
indicate fake news is regarded as newsworthy, with mainstream news media amplifying its use.
Overwhelmingly, the main political actors using fake news discourse belong to the political right
(see Figure 3). Likewise, the conservative press was more likely to report it, especially Murdoch’s Australian
newspaper. Politicians from minor parties were also disproportionately represented (32%), consistent with
the “fringe” observation described earlier. Two Labor representatives (Mike Kelly and Sam Dastyari) were
the only nonright politicians to assert (rather than rebuke) the language with any regularity. This finding is
consistent with studies showing fake news circulation and discourse is predominantly the domain of
conservatives (Marwick & Lewis, 2017; McNair, 2018).
0
5
10
15
20
25
30
Abbott(LH;LIB)
Abetz(LIB)
Bernardi(AC)
Bishop(LH;LIB)
Brandis(LIB)
Canavan(NAT)
Christensen(LH;…
Dastiyari(ALP)
DiNatale(AG)
Dutton(LH;LIB)
Frydenberg(LH;LIB)
Hanson(PHON)
Hinch(DHJP)
*Jones(LH;ALP)
Kelly(LH;ALP)
Leyonhelm(LD)
Morrison(LH;LIB)
Pyne(LH;LIB)
Roberts(PHON)
*Shorten(LH;ALP)
Turnbull(LH;LIB)
Xenophon(NXT)
Federal MPs using fake news discourse
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4363
Figure 3. Percentage share of seats in parliament compared with percentage share of total fake
news discourse events, by party. N = 22 politicians using fake news discourse; parties organized
left to right politically. Source: Authors.
Finally, we find that political elites use the discourse of fake news most often in the context of
politics and personality, rather than policy debates. For example, in a press release on his website,
conservative Liberal6
Senator Eric Abetz (2017) resorted to fake news discourse to attack the public
broadcaster by claiming the ABC is “plagued by bias, has a fetish for running fake news as fact and is
overrun by poor financial management.”
6
Note that the Liberal Party is the primary conservative party in Australia, despite the progressive
connotations of “liberal.”
0
10
20
30
40
50
60
A
ustralian
G
reens
LaborParty
N
ick
X
enophon
Team
D
erryn
H
inch'sJusticeParty
Coalition
(Liberaland
N
ationalParties)
LiberalD
em
ocraticParty
A
ustralian
Conservatives
PaulineH
anson'sO
neN
ation
Percentage Share of Seats in
Parliament
Percentage of Total Fake
News Discourse Events from
Members
4364 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
This finding is consistent with Wardle and Derakhshan’s (2017) contention that information disorder
must be understood in the context of the “ritualistic function of communication” (p. 9) and the emotional
and psychological factors at play. Drawing on Carey (1989), they emphasize that communication does not
merely represent the transmission of information between people, but “plays a fundamental role in
representing shared beliefs” and constitutes “not just information, but drama” (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017,
p. 9). Building on this, Wardle and Derakhshan point to the fact that “successful problematic content . . .
plays on people’s emotions, encouraging feelings of superiority, anger or fear” and that such content is often
delivered performatively (p. 9). Given this association between information disorder and “exaggerated
emotional articulations of the world” (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017, p. 14), it is unsurprising that politicians
used fake news in emotive contexts of politicking and personality attacks rather than policy debates. This
reflects Brummette and colleagues’ (2018) finding that the term “fake news” is associated with “emotionally
charged and ideologically similar online networks” (p. 510). Like “fake news” itself, we find political elites’
use of fake news discourse is closely linked to emotional constructions of shared beliefs and rarely to
discussions of policy detail.
However, the Hansard data deviated from the above findings. In this forum, fake news
discourse—although primarily used to attack opposition politicians—appeared mostly in the context of
policy debates. Further, the most common term within Hansard was “post-truth,” rather than “fake news,”
the dominant term on other platforms. We hypothesize that the overrepresentation of then PM Malcolm
Turnbull (seven of 14 Hansard documents) provides one explanation for the dominance of “post-truth”
because it appeared to be his preferred term. Further, the parliament is a forum in which politicians
contest one another, seeking to construct their version of reality. Here, their target is not the media, but
each other. Post-truth in this circumstance is about constructing their narrative that sees their opponents
as untruthful rather than fake—a term reserved for the media. We return to these differences in usage
across communicative platforms shortly.
Usage and Targets
We now turn our attention to the use and targets of fake news discourse across the different public
communications platforms. Focusing on the categories drawn from existing fake news typologies, we find
the discourse was never used to label content as satire/parody. Rather, politicians overwhelmingly deployed
fake news language to call out material they alleged contained misleading/fabricated content (72%). Much
less often (8%) the discourse was used to question the source of information (see Table 2).
Australian politicians’ fake news language was targeted at news media in 57% of all instances,
usually to attack critical coverage or unfavorable representations of the politician/their party. This result
supports existing assertions that the discourse of fake news is appropriated by politicians to attack and
delegitimize negative reporting and media outlets perceived as critical (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017). This
is an important finding because politicians’ strategic use of the fake news lexicon to target the mainstream
media extends McNair’s notion of the “weaponization” of fake news. McNair (2018) argues the digital public
sphere allows for false information to be “weaponized” in “new and potentially much more damaging ways
than was the case for fakers in the past” (p. 89), such that incorrect information is increasingly used for
strategic political gain at the expense of the news media’s reputation.
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4365
Table 2. Usage of Terms as per Existing Typologies.
Communications forum Satire/parody
Misleading/fabricated
content Imposter content
Press 0 57 2
Twitter 0 24 0
Politicians’ websites 0 13 5
Hansard 0 7 0
Facebook 0 9 5
Total 0 110 12
Percentage of sample 0 72 8
Note. Coding categories are neither mutually exclusive nor exhaustive.
Source: Authors.
The Facebook page of former right-wing populist senator Malcolm Roberts provides the most
extreme example of the weaponization of fake news discourse against the mainstream media. Targeting
the national broadcaster, Roberts (2017) used Facebook to label a report about his party leader as fake
news: “Turns out the ABC, in-between spewing fake news about our party, ruined ANZAC day for
diggers. . . . The ABC are a clear and present threat to democracy.”7
In the data, the ABC is frequently
targeted by conservatives, with politicians from three conservative parties claiming the ABC produced
fake news to satisfy leftist agendas.
This branding may engender public doubt about the trustworthiness of Australia’s oldest media
institution. The media are already experiencing a drop in public trust in liberal, anglophone media systems
(Hanitzsch, Van Dalen, & Steindl, 2018). By attacking the media with terms that have been shown to confuse
public debate, politicians risk further weakening public respect for traditional elite gatekeepers, while
simultaneously shaping the agenda and regaining some control over messaging in a chaotic digital media
ecosystem (Engesser, Ernst, Esser, & Büchel, 2017; Smith, 2010). Although this “weaponization” is not
widespread, it is a visible trend. These findings serve to complicate the relationship among political elites,
perceived mainstream media bias, and drivers of public mistrust in democracies, indicating the urgency for
further research.
Turning to the question of who introduces the discourse of fake news, where transcripts of media
interviews were available on politicians’ websites, surprisingly the journalist introduced the topic in 75% of
cases. Typically, the MP accepts (rather than refutes) the premise of fake news, taking it as an opportunity
to criticize the media or political opponents. In this common scenario, the journalist’s question becomes an
easy scoring point for the politician, often allowing them to sidestep a question or gratuitously query the
media’s veracity. For example (Turnbull 2017):
7
ANZAC Day is a national holiday in memory of fallen defense force members; “digger” is colloquial for
soldier in Australia and New Zealand.
4366 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
JOURNALIST: Today, we have seen a press conference by President Trump where he has
discussed at length this issue as fake news. Prime Minister Turnbull do you believe there
is such a thing as fake news?
PRIME MINISTER: A very great politician, Winston Churchill, once said that politicians
complaining about the newspapers, is like a sailor complaining about the sea—there’s not
much point. That is the media we live with.
This kind of sequence suggests journalists play a role in driving and reinforcing fake news discourse,
likely to the detriment of trust in journalism (Van Duyn & Collier, 2018). We offer two hypotheses that may
account for journalists’ initiation of fake news discussions. First, political-economic evaluations of media
suggest that the discourse of “fake news” is accommodated in reporting because of commercial news values.
The impact of changing technological, sociopolitical, and economic conditions on newsrooms are well
documented (Schudson, 2008). These structural changes have led journalists to “continuously reproduce
news around familiar themes and formats” (Flew, 2009, p. 89), such that it can be quickly produced and
easily digested. “Fake news” fits such a criterion. It is a salient concept that has featured strongly in public
discourse since the 2016 U.S. presidential election and is sensational, but simple. These elements give it
news value. Journalists’ introduction of the discourse therefore provides an easy representation of a popular,
contemporary political issue. In this way, the pressure to produce constant, marketable news may account
for why journalists initiate the discourse.
To understand why journalists do not refute the terminologies, we examine the concept of
“indexing.” Media coverage is often constrained by the contours of elite debate on a given topic. As Bennett
(1990) notes, “mass media news professionals . . . tend to ‘index’ the range of voices and viewpoints in
both news and editorials according to the range of views expressed in mainstream government debate about
a given topic” (p. 106). If a perspective is not apparent in elite circles, it is unlikely to be voiced in the media
(Bennett, 1990). Consequently, mainstream media may be “unwilling to . . . challenge official narratives
about public issues” (Bennett, Lawrence, & Livingston, 2006, p. 482). Rather than challenging fake news
discourse, journalists become complicit in propagating its usage because it fits within existing debates.
Sometimes, albeit rarely, political interviewees contest journalists’ usage of fake news discourse.
Three members of the opposition center-left Labor party outright reject journalists’ use of fake news
terminologies. For example (Labor 2016):
JOURNALIST: There’s been a lot of talk since the election of Donald Trump in the United
States that we are in a new phase now that we’re operating in a post-truth world. What
do you think—how loose do you think politicians can be with the facts if they’re tapping
into the public mood?
SHORTEN: No, I don’t think that we are in a post-truth phase. What happened in
America I think was due to a great deal of disenchantment with business as usual, with
vested interests.
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4367
The difference in approach between senior Labor and Liberal politicians is consistent with the
broader finding that fake news discourse is primarily a conservative tool.
The exchanges where opposition members refute the premise of fake news represent three of four
instances where fake news was problematized. On the fourth occasion, Labor MP Mike Kelly used the term
in a tweet to indicate “fake news” was a social phenomenon requiring scrutiny. The absence of discussion
by politicians in our sample of fake news as a policy challenge is at odds with broader Australian and global
conversations. In May 2017, the Australian Senate issued terms of reference for an inquiry into the “Future
of Public Interest Journalism,” including two terms (1.c and e) explicitly naming “fake news” (Parliament of
Australia, 2017b). Similarly, in December 2017, the federal “Digital Platforms Inquiry” referred to the
“quality of news” in its terms of reference (Morrison, 2017). In the U.S., the Senate Select Committee on
Intelligence similarly held hearings about social media influence in the 2016 U.S. elections (U.S. Senate
Select Committee on Intelligence, 2017). This disparity between the state of global and national
conversation, and the level of debate evidenced in our data, suggests that Australian political discourse lags
behind debates about information disorder as a social and policy problem.
Differences Across Platforms
Subtle differences were identified in the use of fake news language across platforms. We argue
these disparities across communicative spaces can be partly understood through the lens of Kreiss and
colleagues’ (2018) theory of strategic social media use. They argue that political communication on different
platforms is shaped by political campaigners’ perceptions of their candidate, audiences, affordances, genres,
and election timing. To this framework, we add “gatekeeping.”
The media were the most common target accused of peddling fake news. However, in politicians’
press releases and Hansard documents, politicians tended to attack fellow politicians using this language.
We suggest these divergent trends are, in part, attributable to the kind of communicative space each
medium represents. On social media and politicians’ websites, political elites bypass journalistic gatekeepers
to speak to the public directly, often their “base,” which may embolden them to attack the framing of stories
(see Engesser et al., 2017). By comparison, press releases are designed to be reported in the mainstream
media, so politicians may be hesitant to criticize the media in a context where they are dependent on it to
share their message. These elements reflect the communications genre, or the style of communication
expected in each context, as well as who the politician is talking to via the medium (audiences) and whether
their discourse will be filtered through or potentially silenced by gatekeepers.
Yet this study found the role of the traditional gatekeeper of political communication—the news
media—is manipulated for political outcomes at the gatekeeper’s own expense. Political elites use fake
news discourse to appeal to different audiences, including gatekeepers, who, as outlined above, are
unlikely to refute, and instead often amplify messages about fake news, even to their own detriment.
This is evident in the U.S. when journalists report and thus spread the president’s tweets about “fake
news,” which often delegitimize the media. Carlson (2017) reminds us that in doing so, journalistic
authority—the “right to be listened to” (p. 8)—is challenged. Egelhofer and Lecheler (2019) also argue
that in these instances “fake news” is aimed at news media to undermine the traditional gatekeeper’s
4368 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
legitimacy, rather than being employed to evaluate the veracity of media coverage. Although there is not
space here to investigate the full epistemic consequences for public knowledge of this attack on
gatekeepers’ credibility (for discussion, see Egelhofer & Lecheler, 2019), we note that perceptions of
gatekeepers shape strategic political communication across platforms. We thus propose the addition of
gatekeepers to Kreiss and colleagues’ (2018) framework. Echoing Egelhofer and Lecheler (2019), we posit
that research on how journalists respond to attacks on their legitimacy using the political weaponry of
fake news discourse is urgently required.
Parliamentary debates recorded in Hansard are, in a Westminster system, a communicative genre
where it is the norm for politicians to robustly criticize each other. Our data reflect this. In eight of 14
documents where the fake news discourse was detected, it was used to discredit political parties or
politicians, or denote something said by a politician as untrue/misleading. For example, then PM Malcolm
Turnbull asserted (House of Representatives, 2017), “The hypocrisy of this Leader of the Opposition strains
the boundaries of traditional political practice. He has moved into the post-truth environment with a
vengeance.” The affordances of different platforms also affect the manifestation of fake news discourse.
Hansard, given the parliament’s scope for wordy debate, tends to entail more expansive statements
employing fake news discourse; by contrast, Twitter’s tight architecture curtails statements (Papacharissi,
2009).
The target audience of the message and the type of politician (candidate) also shaped the use of
fake news discourse. As Kreiss and colleagues (2018) note, campaign media practitioners in the U.S.
perceive Twitter to be the purview of the political class, and to fulfill an agenda-setting function shaping
legacy media. Twitter can therefore be used for formulating pithy public statements. This is reflected in
high-profile government ministers’ use of the platform primarily to establish their position on an issue. For
example, senior Coalition minister Josh Frydenberg used Twitter to clarify a previous statement, tweeting
that “FakeNews @Mark_Butler_MP Last Sept I said: ‘But for that weather event, the blackout would have
never occurred’” (@JoshFrydenberg, 2017).
Although we rarely found verbatim feed-through of fake news discourse from Twitter to legacy
media, this did occur once in our data set: Abbott’s statement about the boxing bout (described above)
appears first on Twitter and later in two press articles. Interestingly, we found verbatim statements rarely
traveled across platforms, with four instances of fake news discourse repeated once, and two statements
found three times each (six statements reproduced a total of 14 times).
Although high-profile government MPs most often used Twitter to state a public position, “fringe”
politicians from minor parties used Twitter to attack others or rail against a perceived injustice. Again, the
type of politician (candidate) and target audience matters. For example, Malcolm Roberts (@MRobertsQLD
2017) used the platform to attack BuzzFeed, tweeting, “@MarkDiStef you never fail to disgrace yourself or
insult a large swathe of the population. Last time u attacked Jews. You are #fakenews.” Fringe candidates,
such as Roberts, are overwhelmingly dominant in the Twitter/Facebook data compared with other political
fora. Social media may be a way for these politicians to cut through the noise of other political actors.
Consistent with Papacharissi (2009) and Kreiss at al. (2018), we observe that social media are fora for
presenting an image that reflects a candidate’s “authentic” personality, with posts designed to appear
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4369
intimate and spontaneous. The fiery exchanges on both Twitter and Facebook from minor party fringe
candidates, as well as occasional members of major parties who are perceived as less restrained in their
public discourse,8
can be seen to reflect these politicians’ public personas.
Contestation
A recurring approach in contemporary fake news research is to investigate whether false or
problematic messages are contested (e.g., Bennett & Livingston, 2018). In the case of deliberately
distributed disinformation, critical analysis and contestation are imperative to counteract the potential for
negative societal impacts. However, challenging such messages is difficult because of the sophisticated
representation of disinformation, the speed of communication through digital networks, the effects of peerto-peer
dissemination, and associated issues of polarization and echo chambers (McNair, 2018).
Nonetheless, we sought to assess whether, and to what extent, a politician’s use of fake news terminologies
was contested at the time of utterance.
As noted above, we find minimal contestation of fake news terminologies spoken by political elites,
with the language uncontested in 81% of cases.9
Journalists were often found to introduce the topic, which
politicians used opportunistically to criticize the media or reset the agenda; journalists rarely resisted this
(25% of press cases). Rather, the media effectively helped distribute a potentially destructive message for
journalism (Van Duyn & Collier, 2018). Because news media act as a conduit between politicians and voters
(Errington & Miragliotta, 2011), this media amplification of fake news discourse and concomitant failure to
contest the underlying premise of these terminologies is a concerning trend for the health of democratic
debate—particularly given the research suggesting tangible consumer impacts (Van Duyn & Collier, 2018).
Hansard data showed that politicians’ statements incorporating the discourse of fake news were
frequently challenged by opposing members. However, the discourse itself was never targeted for
contestation. Although the sentiment of the attack was often hotly debated, the lexicon was never singled
out for discussion. Because the parliamentary context lends itself to contestation and debate, it is concerning
that the use of fake news terminologies was never disputed in this forum. This may indicate that the
weaponization of fake news language by politicians is becoming normalized.
On Facebook, public commenters on politicians’ posts also fail to contest the discourse of fake
news. In fact, citizens often redeploy this language in comments. However, these comments were not in
direct response to the use of such terminology by political elites, and therefore not within the bounds of our
data set. Yet the redeployment of this language by the public, in politically charged online spheres, is
concerning and warrants further investigation. It may indicate that the discourse of fake news is contagious,
mirroring findings by Brummette et al. (2018), especially when legitimized by political elites and amplified
on social media. Commenters’ rhetoric—especially on the Facebook pages of right-wing populists—was often
vitriolic. This is consistent with broader research into social media usage and rising populism, the
8
Senators Eric Abetz (Liberal) and Sam Dastyari (Labor) are two such examples.
9
Twitter data were excluded from this calculation. Because we did not analyze replies to Tweets or conversations
via hashtags, we could not ascertain whether the fake news discourse was immediately contested.
4370 Farhall, Carson, Wright, Gibbons, and Lukamto International Journal of Communication 13(2019)
combination of which has been associated with aggressive linguistic constructions (Knobloch, 2017; Musolff,
2015), and mirrors research finding that digital technologies facilitate the rapid spread of information
pollution (McNair, 2018).
Conclusion
This article examined the use of fake news discourse by Australian parliamentarians across
political communication fora over a six-month period. It had two aims. First, to assess the claim (in an
Australian context) that the discourse of fake news associated with Donald Trump has “begun to be
appropriated by politicians around the world” (Wardle & Derakhshan, 2017, p. 5). Second, to assess how
Australian politicians deploy this discourse across different communications platforms and whether this
usage is refuted.
We find evidence in the Australian context supporting the concept of a “fake news” contagion. Fake
news language has emerged as part of Australian strategic political communications since Trump’s election;
however, its usage is not (yet) widespread among MPs. Although we cannot directly assess if the adoption
of the discourse of fake news is a form of contagion from U.S. politics, it appears so, reflecting existing
findings that the discourse is contagious (Brummette et al., 2018). Repeated searches show no evidence of
the use of fake news discourse by Australian politicians before Trump co-opting the term.
Addressing the second aim, we find the discourse was predominantly used by conservative
politicians. More specifically, prominent conservatives, or members of smaller populist parties that struggle
to attract media attention without employing sensationalist claims. The language also featured most often
in conservative newspapers. This finding of a right-wing bias is consistent with global understandings of the
phenomenon (McNair, 2018).
Fake news discourse is used to attack the media rather than other politicians, apart from in
parliament, with the public broadcaster often singled out for criticism. We find that journalists failed to
contest such reputational attacks on their integrity, and interview transcripts demonstrated reporters were
often complicit by introducing fake news terms into public conversation. The reasons for this may reflect
indexing theory and the logic of political economy. Journalists’ failure to challenge fake news usage offers
an opportunity for political elites to normalize this discourse.
Despite an international narrative around social media driving the fake news phenomenon and
Twitter providing an agenda-setting vehicle for legacy media (Kreiss et al., 2018), we find that the diffusion
of fake news discourse across communicative platforms in the Australian context is limited. Yet applying
and extending Kreiss et al.’s (2018) framework partly accounts for how and why fake news discourse
examples in the data vary across communicative spaces.
The process of weaponizing fake news language to impugn media integrity for political gain
arguably occurs at the expense of public trust in the media. Given the lack of contestation, our findings
suggest that news media need to carefully consider how they approach and frame politicians’ use of fake
news discourse before this delegitimization technique further erodes public confidence in the media. We
International Journal of Communication 13(2019) Political Elites’ Use of Fake News 4371
recommend that journalists adopt a more critical stance with politicians when these terminologies are
deployed, and defend their professional legitimacy in the eyes of the public.
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