The visual representation of misinformation in the news

Abstract

This exploratory descriptive study examines the visual representation of misinformation in the news, partly relying on the automated labels associated with online and broadcast news such as OCR, face sentiments, labels, and logos detection. The findings of the study show that online and TV news organizations show varied amounts of attention in using misinformation-related terms to visually discuss events and issues, for CNN comes ahead in the US followed by MSNBC and Fox News. In terms of online news, The Daily Mail in the UK is the most active in visually covering misinformation. Many news organizations around the world are using the English language visual mark “Fake news” and related ones to fact check or discredit other sources of information. The study identifies other patterns of visual news coverage including sentiments associated with some political leaders and political polarization around issues related to misinformation such as COVID-19.