Fake news y relaciones públicas en América Latina

The phenomenon of fake news has been one of the main themes in the 2018-2019 edition of the Latin American Communication Monitor, the largest study on the profession of public relations and strategic communication carried out by the European Public Relations Education and Research Association (EUPRERA). Through a comparative study in the different countries of the region, the results characterize the development of the activity, the structures and the main trends from the professionals’ perspective. On this occasion we present, with 1,165 responses considered valid, and within a target audience profile, the main results linked to fake news in the public relations activity in Latin America. Although professionals are accompanying discussions about this phenomenon (more than 60%), only 26% of organizations have already implemented formal guidelines and routines to deal with fake news and only 7.2% have specific technologies and systems installed to identify them. Government organizations (which claim to be the most affected: 37.2%) and those that have already been affected by this type of practices (49.7%) are those that rely on the individual competencies of their communication structure to solve the problem.