La baraja y el soldado. Dissemination of a fake news in the Spanish press of the 19th and 20th centuries
Abstract
In this paper we have analyzed a corpus consisting of 70 Spanish publications (19 chapbooks and 51 newspapers) published between the 18th and 20th centuries. Our objective is to determine whether there was a direct relationship between the serious and popular press as competitors and reciprocal sources of content in the same literary and information market, using a case study, “La baraja y el soldado”. The analysis of the content shows the success of a traditional narrative of unknown origin, probably fictional, which was repeatedly presented as a true event in Spanish newspapers and chapbooks for two centuries. Our conclusion is that we are witnessing the "viralization" of a fake news story intended to sell more copies and/or indoctrinate with its pious moral.
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