Fixing fake news: Understanding and managing the marketer-consumer information echosystem

Remedies to fake news have generally emphasized identification of false content (information fact-checking) and censorship (curtailing information dissemination). In this article, we focus on the systems within which fake news travels, rather than the information per se. Specifically, we look at the marketer-consumer ecosystem and argue that such signaling systems tend to become self-reinforcing, such that the information content becomes orthodoxy; technically, this is known as a homeostatic system. From this perspective, solutions to the dissemination of fake news are the identification of links in signaling systems that can disrupt the homeostatic cycle. Our article is set out as follows. First, we provide a brief overview of fake news and of the primary methods used to counter its spread. Second, we take a systems view on news and its dissemination. Third, we illustrate the self-reinforcing tendency of such systems by means of four case studies. Fourth, we explore what managers can do to manage the marketer-consumer information ecosystem so as to minimize fake news. This involves two steps: (1) understanding the system and its components; and (2) based on these insights, making substantive changes to the system. The latter step includes changing the elements of the system, adding feedback loops, and changing the goals of the system.