Mosca, L., & Paxton, F. (2026). Fake news as a rhetorical weapon: Strategic delegitimization and selective amplification in Italian newspapers. European Journal of Communication. https://doi.org/10.1177/02673231261458935
Summary
This paper reframes accusations of “fake news” as a strategic rhetorical practice rather than a straightforward response to misinformation. Mosca and Paxton propose the Strategic Delegitimization and Selective Amplification (SDSA) model, which theorises how political actors weaponise fake news accusations to delegitimise opponents within negative campaigning, and how media outlets differentially amplify these accusations along partisan or strategic lines. The framework is developed and illustrated through the Italian newspaper context, shifting the analytic frame from epistemic concerns about information quality to the political-communicative uses of the label itself.
Key Contributions
- Introduces the SDSA model as a novel conceptual framework for analysing fake news accusations.
- Reconceptualises “fake news” from a misinformation problem to a strategic rhetorical weapon in political conflict.
- Bridges literatures on negative campaigning, political delegitimization, and media amplification dynamics.
- Applies the framework empirically to the Italian media-political system.
Methods
The paper develops a theoretical framework (SDSA) and applies it through empirical analysis of Italian newspapers. Specific methodological details are not available from the abstract.
Findings
- Fake news accusations operate as rhetorical weapons in political conflict, not merely as descriptive responses to misinformation.
- Politicians deploy these accusations strategically within negative campaigning to delegitimise opponents.
- Media outlets engage in selective amplification, unevenly propagating accusations based on political alignment or strategic interest.
- A dual-level model capturing both elite rhetorical strategy and media amplification is needed to explain the phenomenon.
Connections
This paper connects strongly to work reframing “fake news” as a discursive/political label rather than a content category, most directly Farkas2026-lr, and to studies of elite delegitimization rhetoric such as Hameleers2026-mc on populist attacks on media. It also relates to research on partisan media amplification dynamics like Bollenbacher2026-vz and Rossini2026-jn, and to Italian-context misinformation work such as Giglietto2019-e9be81c1 and Marino2023-9137f448.