Hoaxes and Advertising Part 6

Only one hoax got loose this year around April Fools day, that I came across. A story from a satire site was forwarded around the HBCUs (including the one where I teach) On the satire site itself, the contrivance is obvious. But when cut-and-paste text into an email forward, the satire-turned-hoax was enough to get some people worried enough to continue forwarding the email. Here is the original site:

http://thepeoplesnews.wordpress.com/2008/03/02/federal-judge-enough-with-the-stupid-names/

Here is an excerpt of the email forward I received: (names and email addresses removed)

> ------------------------------------------------
>
> Date: Thu, 27 Mar 2008 15:56:27 -0400
> From: _______________________@gmail.com
> Subject: Federal Judge forbids Poor Black mothers
> from naming their children
>
> It just haaaaad to be Deeeeeetroit!!!!!!!
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> I do not like a lot of the names that I am hearing
> but I strongly disagree with this ruling!!#$%@
>
> This is a da-- shame!!!
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------
>
> From: _______________________
> Sent: Tuesday, March 25, 2008 10:11 AM
> Subject: Fw: Federal Judge forbids Poor Black
> mothers from naming their children
>
> WOW... I have no words. No words at all.
>

The satire site then followed up with another story which, when again out of context, only seemed to "collaborate" the initial hoax story:

http://thepeoplesnews.wordpress.com/2008/03/18/condi-calls-for-removal-of-detroit-‘naming-rights’-judge/

Regarding the continuing connection between hoaxes and advertising -- particularly their connection through the concept of negative irony, I came across another mention of Judith Williamson, and a brilliantly creepy hoax/satire website by Axe/Lynx.

http://omni.bus.ed.ac.uk/opsman/quality/SEM_black_run_26.htm

http://www.axevice.com/naughtytonice/

But what's brilliantly insidious is that the marketing website gives the embed code, allowing bloggers to put the video directly into their personal blog. This instant decontextualization can suddenly take this "viral video" from the Axe website and have it "masked" within another. Almost the exact equivalent of the text cut-and-paste: this fast decontextualization and recontexualization of media hoaxes will very quickly move from text emails to video and other rich media content.

The one counter-factor to the spread of media hoaxes is the addition of "Comments" sections. "The People's News" satire site has an enormously long comments thread - debunking itself several times over. YouTube also allows for lively discussions of the video content. So the open-ness of digital recombinant media has an upside as well.