The production of fake news: Now and then

This study is a basis for a Sub-Plenary at the EGOS Conference in Hamburg, 2020. I compare my experience of fake news in the communist era in Poland – with research of my Polish colleagues studying media now. How is it possible that a nation that was suspicious of media for half of the century started believing the fake news produced at present? And, who produces fake news in Poland now – the old fake news producers, who again can exercise their craft, or the new fake news producers? The answers to these questions will be then compared to the emergence of fake news in other countries, where such phenomenon could be observed much earlier than it is assumed. What is new now is the technology, specifically the Internet and the social media, that at present facilitate both production and distribution of fake news.