Jag kan ta en pizzaslice och ett barn ifrån källaren tack! - En kritisk studie om desinformation och Pizzagate

Abstract

Pizzagate; How has the conspiracy theory been received by Twitter users? With this degree project, I will examine the fake news "Pizzagate" that was spread on Twitter in 2016 during the US presidential election, to then see what reception the misinformation received and how wildly it was spread by internet users. The purpose of this essay is to highlight the importance of source evaluation when using social media and that you, as a user, have an obligation to review the material before sharing. The methods to get the results is to explore, through a content analysis method, the spread of this news through Twitter posts, study articles claiming the conspiracy theory to be true or false and literature explaining disinformation. The theoretical approach used for the following methods involves Edmund Husserl theory about phenomenology to explore the phenomena about spreading disinformation online.