From racial hoaxes to media hypes. Fake news’ real consequences

Racial hoaxes are becoming a popular discursive strategy to disguise racism, as well as a powerful means for triggering waves of fake news and outraged comments both on mainstream and social media. Built on grounds of plausibility and consistency with existing narratives, racial hoaxes may remain latent for a long time, and periodically emerge when negative stereotypes can be framed as actual news stories. Racial hoaxes have relevant political and social implications: spread across multiple channels, they can foster exclusionary discourse on immigration, migrants, refugees, and other minorities, with concrete consequences on people and policies. In particular, far-right movements embrace hoaxes as a great opportunity to advocate their claims and legitimate their calls for violent action.