Fantastic—what we’ve got here is a taxonomy of trickery, a field guide to the many forms disinformation takes when it gets dressed up to party online.

Anna Staender and Edda Humprecht give us not just a list of types, but a detailed, evidence-backed cheat sheet of how false and misleading content parades as legit news across platforms and media environments.

This paper dives into:

  • Formats of deception (text! images! videos! oh my!)
  • Degrees of falseness (from light distortion to full-blown fiction)
  • Intentionality (not always evil geniuses—sometimes it’s just a sloppy meme gone viral)

Part One: The Six Faces of Misinformation (à la Wardle 2019)

Think of these like the Avengers of information disorder.

Each one plays a specific role:

  1. Satire or Parody – Usually meant as a joke, but can mislead the humorless or context-challenged.
  2. False Connection – The headline promises one thing, the article delivers a different disaster entirely.
  3. Misleading Content – Selective truths spun like cotton candy—fluffy, colorful, and mostly air.
  4. False Context – Real image, wrong story. Like using a wildfire photo from Australia to hype riots in Chicago.
  5. Imposter Content – That wasn’t the CDC tweeting. It was your cousin in a fake lab coat.
  6. Fabricated Content – A deepfake, a made-up quote, or a headline straight out of the fiction section.

Bonus: Manipulated Content – When real material gets digitally edited into something Frankenstein would blush at.

Part Two: How to Spot Junk News in the Wild (Bradshaw et al., 2020)

“Junk news” isn’t just sloppy—it’s intentionally deceptive.

Here’s how you know it when you see it:

  • Professionalism: No real names, no corrections, and no accountability. Like a ghost newspaper run by bots.
  • Counterfeit: Looks like CNN, smells like troll sweat. These sites mimic real news design—fonts, logos, datelines—but it’s all for show.
  • Style: Emotional overdrive. ALL CAPS. Fear. Outrage. Memes. Ad hominems. Repeat.
  • Credibility: Cites conspiracy sites as sources, pushes anti-vax hoaxes, never walks back a false claim.
  • Bias: Everything is spun, skewed, or omitted to fit a political agenda. Facts are optional; feelings are mandatory.

If a site checks three out of five boxes, congrats—it’s officially junk.

Part Three: Trolls Are Not Created Equal (Linvill & Warren, 2020)

From Russia with memes—here’s how the Internet Research Agency crafted its troll army:

  • Right Trolls: Ultra-nationalist, sometimes misogynistic, often fake blonde women with “#MAGA” in their bios.
  • Left Trolls: Woke on the surface, but actually there to fracture leftist coalitions and sow doubt.
  • Newsfeed Trolls: Pretend to be local news. Lure you in with traffic updates; sneak in pro-Kremlin content.
  • Hashtag Gamers: Play innocent social media games to build a follower base, then BAM—disinfo injection.
  • Fearmongers: Fabricated disasters—like fake Ebola outbreaks or nuclear meltdowns—designed to cause panic and distrust.

And yes, the trolls sometimes switch hats. One day they’re tweeting love song lyrics, the next it’s a fake chemical spill. Consistency is not their brand.

So What Does This All Mean?

This paper’s not just cataloging lies—it’s offering a diagnostic framework.

It’s showing us that disinformation isn’t one thing. It’s a shape-shifter. And fighting it means recognizing how it works, why it works, and who benefits.

Also? Not every falsehood is a Kremlin plot. Some are satire. Some are grifters chasing ad revenue. Some are well-meaning folks caught in the gears of bad algorithms.

But all of them—every single type—chip away at trust. Trust in media, institutions, facts, and each other.

Source: "Alternative Media Vary Between Mild Distortion and Extreme Misinformation: Steps Toward a Typology" by Anna Staender, Edda Humprecht, and Frank Esser. It was published in the journal Digital Journalism in 2024.​​