Face the Facts

  • Alice Werrell

Alice Werrell Full Fact is the UK's independent mass media fact checker. Insight: News outlets have political agendas which means the truth is sometimes masked behind skewed statistics and paraphrased quotes. Solution: We shouldn't take what we read at face value and instead get all the facts. Out of Home: depicts famous politicians with controversial descriptions subliminally written on their side profile. At first glance we see who they are but with a more in depth look we see the truth, much like the work Full Fact do. Photobooth installation: The photo-strip you receive isn't what you'd expect which explores how things aren't always as they seem just like fake news. The Full Fact Newspaper Stunt: Exposes the fake news standard papers publish, setting the record straight with the full facts. 'Full Fact Advisory Stickers' would be placed on petrol station newspaper stands and the standard papers would be removed and replaced with the Full Fact paper; almost as though they are being held hostage. Additionally, a print advert would be used to hijack the standard newspapers, directing you to slide the page out, revealing the Full Fact Newspaper behind - which holds the truth behind the recent headlines. Hot Air Balloon: This experiential advertising would have the logo of prominent newspapers accompanied by copy which plays on the idea that what the newspapers report are a load of 'hot air’, and we shouldn't take it at face value. Social media breeds fake news. My Instagram ad utilises the 'zoom in' feature. At face value the word reads Covid 19, but when you zoom in, the truth about the topic is revealed via an accurate, true report carried out by Full Fact researchers. Full Fact would collaborate with Twitter to formulate a feature that would appear in the user's bio which calculates the amount of fake news you have interacted with. The lower the rating on the 'lie-to-meter' the less fake news you read therefore the less you have been lied to and the more clued up you are. Finally, as Twitter is the main hub for fake news, I decided to play on this and make fake twitter accounts impersonating large scale news outlets with manipulated logos. They would post fake news, only to expose themselves a few weeks later proving how easy it is to believe fake news from the standard papers we have become accustomed to.