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Wiki: Hoax
This article is about false information. For the film, see The Hoax.
For the Wikipedia policy about false information, see Wikipedia:Do not create hoaxes.
A hoax is a deliberately fabricated falsehood made to masquerade as truth. [1] It is distinguishable from errors in observation or judgment, [1] or rumors and urban legends that are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes. [2]
Contents:
1. Definition
2. Character of hoaxes
3. Hoax traditions
4. See also
5. References
6. Further reading
7. External links
1. Definition
Thomas Ady's A candle in the dark ... (1656) contains the earliest mention of hocus pocus, the origin of the word hoax. [3]
The British philologist Robert Nares (1753-1829) says that the word hoax was coined in the late 18th century as a contraction of the verb , which means "to cheat", [4] "to impose upon" [4] or "to befuddle often with drugged liquor". [5] Hocus is a shortening of the magic incantation hocus pocus, [5] which in turn is a contraction of the phrase Hocus pocus, tontus talontus, vade celeriter jubeo, mentioned in Thomas Ady's 1656 book A candle in the dark, or a treatise on the nature of witches and witchcraft. [3] According to the book, the Latin-like gibberish phrase was uttered by a conjuror to distract his audience from his sleight of hand. [3]
The term hoax is occasionally used in reference to urban legends and rumors, but the folklorist Jan Harold Brunvand argues that most of them lack evidence of deliberate creations of falsehood and are passed along in good faith by believers or as jokes, so the term should be used for only those with a probable conscious attempt to deceive. [2] As for the closely related terms practical joke and prank, Brunvand states that although there are instances they overlap, hoax tends to indicate "relatively complex and large-scale fabrications" and includes deceptions that go beyond the merely playful and "cause material loss or harm to the victim". [6]
According to Professor Lynda Walsh of the University of Nevada, Reno, some hoaxes—such as the Great Stock Exchange Fraud of 1814, labeled as a hoax by contemporary commentators—are financial in nature, and successful hoaxers—such as P. T. Barnum, whose Fiji mermaid contributed to his wealth—often acquire monetary gain or fame through their fabrications, so the distinction between hoax and fraud is not necessarily clear. [7] Alex Boese, the creator of the Museum of Hoaxes, states that the only distinction between them is the reaction of the public, because a fraud can be classified as a hoax when its method of acquiring financial gain creates a broad public impact or captures the imagination of the masses. [8]
One of the earliest recorded media hoaxes is a fake almanac published by Jonathan Swift under the pseudonym of Isaac Bickerstaff in 1708. [9] Swift predicted the death of John Partridge, one of the leading astrologers in England at that time, in the almanac and later issued an elegy on the day Partridge was supposed to have died. Partridge's reputation was damaged as a result and his astrological almanac was not published for the next six years. [9]
It is possible to perpetrate a hoax by making only true statements using unfamiliar wording or context, such as in the Dihydrogen monoxide hoax. Political hoaxes are sometimes motivated by the desire to ridicule or besmirch opposing politicians or political institutions, often before elections.
A hoax differs from a magic trick or from fiction (books, movies, theatre, radio, television, etc.) in that the audience is unaware of being deceived, whereas in watching a magician perform an illusion the audience expects to be tricked.
A hoax is often intended as a practical joke or to cause embarrassment, or to provoke social or political change by raising people's awareness of something.
A borderline case between fiction and hoax is a 1938 radio broadcast by Orson Welles describing a Martian invasion of earth. Many people who tuned in without hearing the introduction of the program as fiction were concerned that the invasion was real. It has been suggested that Welles knew the schedule of a popular program on another channel, and scheduled the first report of the invasion to coincide with a commercial break in the other program so that people switching channel would be tricked.
Governments sometimes spread false information to assist them with aims such as going to war; examples are the Ems telegram and the "dodgy (Iraq) dossier"; these often come under the heading of black propaganda. There is often a mixture of outright hoax and suppression and management of information to give the desired impression. In wartime and times of international tension rumours abound, some of which may be deliberate hoaxes.
Examples of politics related hoaxes:
- Belgium is a country with a Flemish- and a French-speaking region. In 2006 French-speaking television channel RTBF interrupted programming with a spoof report claiming that the country had split in two and the royal family had fled.
- On Saturday 13 March 2010 the Imedi television station in Georgia broadcast a false announcementRussia had invaded Georgia. that
2. Character of hoaxes
Hoaxes vary widely in their processes of creation, propagation, and entrenchment over time. These possess frequently one or more of the following:
- Hoaxes perpetrated on occasions when their initiation is considered socially appropriate, such as April Fools' Day
- Apocryphal claims that originate as a hoax, gain widespread belief among members of a culture or organization, become entrenched as persons who believe it repeat it in good faith to others, and continue to command that belief after the hoax's originators have died or departed
- Hoaxes that are not affirmatively propagated but rather indirectly "invited," as when persons fabricate evidence consistent with a false claim but do not advocate that claim as a conclusion, instead hoping that observers desiring to draw their own conclusions will reach an erroneous one and spread it in the belief that it is true, such as the use of disinformation in war and counterintelligence
- Hoaxes formed by making minor or gradually increasing changes to a warning or other claim widely circulated for legitimate purposes
- Hoaxes perpetrated by "scare tactics" appealing to the audience's subjectively rational belief that the expected cost of not believing the hoax (the cost if its assertions are true times the likelihood of their truth) outweighs the expected cost of believing the hoax (cost if false times likelihood of falsity), such as claims that a non-malicious but unfamiliar program on one's computer is malware
- Some urban legends and rumors with a probable conscious attempt to deceive [2]
- Humbugs
- Computer virus hoaxes became widespread as viruses themselves began to spread. A typical hoax is an email message warning recipients of a non-existent threat, usually quoting spurious authorities such as Microsoft and IBM. In most cases the payload is an exhortation to distribute the message to everyone in the recipient's address book. Sometimes the hoax is more harmful, e.g., telling the recipient to seek a particular file (usually in a Microsoft Windows operating system); if the file is found, the computer is deemed to be infected unless it is deleted. In reality the file is one required by the operating system for correct functioning of the computer.
- A hoax of exposure is a semi-comical or private sting operation. They usually encourage people to act foolishly or credulously by falling for patent nonsense that the hoaxer deliberately presents as reality. A related activity is culture jamming.
The essential characteristic of a hoax is that it convey information that is, although false, at least somewhat credible. The subjective intent of hoax perpetrators varies, with the intent determining the content the perpetrator chooses and/or the content affecting the perpetrator's intent regarding whom to deceive: A person seeking to deceive the public as a whole may propagate a hoax consisting entirely of objectively credible claims, often bolstering it by including claims that are true or have a basis in fact. A person seeking to deceive only a specific person or set of persons (as by means of a practical joke) will likely select a premise that is subjectively plausible in the eyes of the victim(s), treating whether others will fall for the hoax as a secondary concern. Treated as such, the hoax's objective or intersubjective plausibility or implausibility can cut both ways: On one hand, a person may construct a hoax out of only credible information in order to prevent sympathetic outsiders from "catching on" and informing the victim in advance; on the other, he or she may include implausible information in order to heighten the victim's eventual embarrassment at having "fallen for" the hoax (along with the enjoyment observers feel when watching the victim being deceived).
Some sets of claims popularly labeled hoaxes are better categorized as allegory, fable, satire, or parody: If a person describes a situation or event with the intent to illustrate a principle but without the desire that his audience believe his assertions' literal meaning to be true, the assertions likely form an allegory or a fable. (Note that these claims may eventually develop into an apocryphal hoax or an urban legend if their literal meaning gains belief as they are passed from person to person.) If a person makes statements that have some basis in fact but are in some respects patently absurd, with the intent that the audience notice the similarity between the patent absurdities in the statements and absurdities latent in statements widely accepted in the real world, the person engages in satire. Parody does not require any basis in fact or the intent that any part of it be accepted; rather, its essence is the partial but not total imitation of the thing parodied, along with the elicitation of humor from the simultaneous occurrence of similarities and differences between the parody and its subject.
3. Hoax traditions
During certain events and at particular times of year, hoaxes are perpetrated by many people and groups. The most famous of these is April Fool's Day.
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