Abstract

This paper undertakes an appraisal study of fake news in Nigeria with a view to interrogating how Nigerians express attitudinal meanings about the threat as well as proclaim control measures. Data for the study, which were harvested from human generated text responses, precisely in-depth interviews with key informants, focused group discussions (FGD) and stakeholders´ interactions, were visualised with the aid of sketch engine for ease of content management. Relevant excerpts were, then, analysed qualitatively leveraging Martin and White´s appraisal theory. The findings reveal the predominance of six intersubjective positioning in the data, including negative evaluation of fake news, negative evaluation of people and things, pronouncing propositions through authorial emphasis, positive appraisal of people and things, entertaining dialogic alternatives and proclaiming alternative propositions. The study also shows that respondents deploy appraisal resources such as affect, appreciation, judgement, engagement and graduation in their evaluation of fake news and relevant stakeholders. The study concludes that the implementation of feasible mitigative policies on fake news dissemination is crucial to the actualization of the sustainable development goal 16 vis-à-vis the strengthening of Nigeria´s democracy.