Phony Facts and Eco-media
Fake Nature and the Call for Widespread Media Literacy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 21192593 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Paige Wallace (Florida State University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 13 |
| Issue | 6 |
| Pages | 790-803 |
| Publication date | 2019-08-18 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Communication (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1752-4032 • E-ISSN: 1752-4040 |
| Publisher | Informa UK Limited (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1080/17524032.2018.1461671 |
| OpenAlex | W2807902567 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 11 |
Mermaids: The Body Found privileges mythologized creatures in a fictional narrative disguised as a documentary film in order to blur the boundaries between fact and fiction. This franchise’s decisions to value factors of entertainment over educational material are not uncommon in our consumer-driven society, but the film's engagement with fake fact media potentially repositions how audiences think about important conservation issues by overshadowing critical oceanic environmental topics with fake facts. Although today’s viewers are adept in interpreting media, the mermaid franchise’s use of screen genres, corporate websites, and social media saturates viewers with fake facts making it difficult to delineate between authentic science and fictional narrative. Not a quantitative reception study of audiences, this critical analysis of multiple genres of eco-media examines the difference between fake nature documentary and other types of animal programming and mockumentaries emphasizing that the issue is not strictly a question of entertainment factors or even of the subversion of fact and fiction, alone, but that the real issue lies in the franchise’s willingness to participate in an ever-growing media moment in which programming based on fake and alternative facts has the potential to impact how the public thinks about key issues in politics and science
Advertising · Aesthetics · Art · Entertainment · Literature · Media literacy · Media studies · Narrative · Political science · Politics · Social media · Sociology · Visual arts · Climate Change Communication and Perception · Computer Science · Ecocriticism and Environmental Literature · Law · Rhetoric and Communication Studies
A Geology of Media
Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture
Nature Documentaries, Connectedness to Nature, and Pro-environmental Behavior
A Longitudinal Study of Agenda Setting for the Issue of Environmental Pollution
Are wildlife films really “nature documentaries”
Screen natures’
Reel Nature
Sense of Place and Sense of Planet
| Unique citing works | 2 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,4 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2024 (4) |
| Citation velocity | recent |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 2 |