Satire
In 2025, the ability to recognize when pieces of media published on online platforms is satirical, is critical. According to the article Aging In An Era of Fake News, older adults are the most susceptible to confusing satire for real, true content. Data gathered by the researchers in this study indicated that elderly generations were both exposed most to political “fake news” sites during the 2016 U.S. election and they also shared links to fake news sites with others via Facebook more than any other age group.
In fact, most Americans “consider ‘made up news’ to be a bigger problem than climate change, racism, or terrorism.” (Pew Research Center, 2019)
In 2017, data from the U.S. Census Bureau displayed that older adults had a higher voter turnout rate than any other age group. Over the course of the 2016 election, Twitter users over the age of 50 were responsible for 80% of fake news shares, while on Facebook, users 65 years of age and older shared seven times as many links to fake news compared to young users. (Fake News on Twitter During the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election) This is TROUBLING. There is substantial psychological research providing reasoning for why older individuals tend to engage more with fake content – cognitive deficits, social changes, and gaps in digital literacy. Our goal is not to bash those who are unable to recongize satirical content – we recognize that older adults are typically newcomers to online social media and won’t always be able to spot when content is sponsored, biased, or manipulated. Even people who are young have trouble doing this in this age of incredibly advanced technology.
Propaganda
Propaganda is essentially information or news that is weaponized to sway the public, often by manipulating information with biases. Some level of propaganda is present nearly everywhere including the news, social media, and even in conversation although not all propaganda is as deliberate as others.
In order to identify propaganda a good rule of thumb is to identify topics where there may be a lot of dispute or where some individuals have a lot to gain from certain information. If a piece of media may be propaganda it would be helpful to compare the information with other sources to see if it is consistent with others. It could also be helpful to check the bias of your source with a fact-checking website such as politifact.com or other reliable fact-checking organizations and judge the information accordingly. Most importantly it is important to acknowledge that there is bias in the media you consume and not to simply accept the information as fact.