Systematische Bestimmung eines heterogenen Begriffs

Spätestens seit der Wahl Donald Trumps zum US-amerikanischen Präsidenten haben sogenannte „Fake News“ für eine lebhafte wissenschaftliche Debatte gesorgt. Im Mittelpunkt steht dabei unter anderem die potenzielle Gefahr für die kollektive Selbstbestimmung demokratischer Gesellschaften. Man muss jedoch konstatieren, dass die theoretische Beschäftigung mit dem Gegenstand hinter dessen empirischer Erforschung zurückbleibt. Bisherige Definitionen von „Fake News“ sind weder einheitlich noch widerspruchsfrei und werden zudem nicht nachvollziehbar entwickelt, sondern meist einfach gesetzt. Wir versuchen, dieses Theoriedefizit unter Rückgriff auf Literatur zu Desinformation, Lüge und (öffentlicher) Kommunikation zu überwinden. Dabei ersetzen wir den Begriff „Fake News“ durch den der „aktuellen Desinformation“ und erörtern systematisch, welche Bedingungen notwendig gegeben sein müssen, um von diesem Phänomen sprechen zu können. Schließlich definieren wir aktuelle Desinformation als Kommunikation wissentlich und empirisch falscher Informationen zu neuen und relevanten Sachverhalten mit dem Anspruch auf Wahrheit.

Schlüsselwörter: Fake News, Definition, aktuelle Desinformation, Lüge, Kommunikation, Aktualität, Wahrheitsanspruch, Unwahrheit, Unwahrhaftigkeit

1. Concepts We Live By

Metaphor is for most people a device of the poetic imagination and the rhetorical flourish—a matter of extraordinary rather than ordinary language. Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action. For this reason, most people think they can get along perfectly well without metaphor. We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action. Our ordinary conceptual system, in terms of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature.

Abstract

Within a progressively high knowledge-based society, globally-oriented world, and diverse society, making sure that our students are well equipped with the necessary tools and competences to live in this digital age is, in fact, one of the prevalent challenges facing today’s education. Indeed, the novel nature of reading and readers has enormously changed as digital texts and technologies become more prevalent. Thus, teachers are under the pressure to shape their teaching visions to more mobile-based reading ways that will cope with learners’ new requirements to exist, struggle, and cooperate in a newly global scenario. Thus, the present paper attempts at reflecting upon the challenging task of teachers, from developing world, to incorporate new educational technologies into their typical classrooms in general and reading practice in particular for a better teaching/learning experience. Nonetheless, one should be cognizant of the fact that despite the growing importance of ICTs in education, there is no “magic bullet” that will answer all existing challenges (Schramm, 1977), still there is a lack of a structured approach based on collaboration, innovation, development and implementation of educational technologies. Hence, incorporating technology within the reading process may create a challenging problem at this level; do our learners, in such a technological scenario, read as attentively and thoroughly as required? How do their brains respond to onscreen text than to words on paper? Should teachers be worried about dividing learners’ attention between pixels and ink? This paper will answer these questions and many other concerns

Keywords: Reading skills, ICTs, EFL, technology-based reading, digital age, attentive vs. distractive reading, paper or pixel-based reading