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This commentary on the 2018 special issue of the Journal of American Folklore, "Fake News: Definitions and Approaches" argues that digital networks have enabled fake news by amplification. Fake news by amplification occurs when small- scale events become amplified through the convergent actions of everyday users, mass media gatekeepers, and social media algorithms. Events that are amplified risk becoming distorted as they circulate, with users supplying their own context and interpretations. The resulting fake news is difficult to counter because it goes beyond questions of fact and enters the realm of interpretation, enabled by widespread networked belief. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

One of the solutions proposed to mitigate the impact of fake news is to train readers to be more critical of the material they encounter. While critical research and reading are indeed important skills to teach, the study of legends shows us that our acquisition of information -- even that which we might call "news" -- often comes from informal, conversational sources rather than from activities that we would label "research." On social media, where the line between reading and conversing is especially blurred, the vetting of sources is complicated by the perception of exactly who or what the source of the information really is. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of fake news as it has risen to the fore in public and political discourse provides folklorists with an opportunity to not only weigh into the discussion with significant expertise, but also to reconsider our approach to the study of legend. In this paper, I propose a reorientation from a truth-centered approach to the study of legend to a doubt-centered one. Such an approach has the dual benefit of reorienting legend scholarship in new and productive ways while being particularly well-suited to the study of fake news. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper addresses the suggestion that "fake news" would be better called "folk news." It explores the tale of the death and subsequent replacement by an impostor of a nineteenth-century celebrity, comparing that story to similar tales about Paul McCartney and Mark Twain. The legends and proverbs created in the context of these news reports suggest that "fake news" is not the same as "folk news," largely because "folk" does not mean "fake." [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An introduction is presented in which the author discusses various articles within the journal's special issue on fake news, and it mentions stories about folklorists' analyses of fake news, truth, and the benefits associated with the consideration of fake news as a belief system.

We are awash in words and images that sound and look like real news, hut are not. This article considers certain kinds of fake news as a genre of digital folklore and attempts to sort out the differences among fake news hoaxes, pranks, satires, and parodies. It offers examples of each and tries to show how fake news functions as folk political commentary or folk media criticism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]