This works employs quantitative content analysis to examine the origins and connotations of the expression “fake news” in non-English speaking European media. The expression, for which no unambiguous definition exists, is now widely employed in the public discourse, and intrinsically linked to the Internet – due to its fast pace, ample reach, and ease of sharing, often overlooking the verifiability of a claim or reliability of its source. We examined articles from the main European newspaper at the thematic and content level, to trace the timeframe of the development of this expression. As a case study, we then investigated the keywords and collocations of a corpus of articles by Ansa to verify the context, meanings, and associations of its use in the Italian public debate. We find that the expression “fake news” gained traction with the 2016 US elections, a period marked by low levels of trust in institutions and the media both in Europe and the US. Far from being neutral, the expression is heavily connoted, a kind of “communicative weapon” to be used against political or media opponents, particularly for communications on social networks and the web.
