The word propaganda is defined as designating any attempt to influence the opinions or actions of others to some predetermined end by appealing to their emotions or prejudices or by distorting the facts. We are fooled by propaganda chiefly because they appeal to our emotions rather than to our reason. They make us believe and do something we would not believe or do. And since it appeal more to our emotions; we often don’t recognize it when we see it.
The current political landscape is shaped by extreme polarization of opinions and by the proliferation of fake news.
Studies and surveys has found that rumour’s and fake news tend to spread six times faster than truthful information. This situation both damages the reputation of respectable news outlets and it also undermines the very foundations of democracy, which needs free and reliable press to thrive. Therefore, it is in the interest of the public as well as of the news organizations to be able to detect and fight disinformation in all its forms.
Here, we are trying to create a tool that can help identify propagandistic articles with the help of Predictive Analytics.
The main objectives are:
(i) to flag the article as a whole
(ii) to detect the potentially propagandistic sentences in a news article
(iii) to identify the exact type and span of use of propagandistic techniques