Fake news isn’t a new term. During the Weekend Update, Saturday Night Live’s satirical news segment, anchor Norm McDonald would start it off with “Good evening — and now for the fake news.”

The segment was good for laughs. But today, “fake news” in the public eye has gone from satire towards a more problematic tone of propaganda.

In the age of the continuous social media feed, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to suss out the truth from falsehoods. Since the last presidential election, the term has been thrown around by all sides of the political field.

Communications professor Dr. Mark Tremayne studies ways to fact check what is said in the media. He said the fake news phenomena is fueled by hyper-partisan politics that dominate the public landscape. He also said the filter bubble of social networking has contributed greatly to the ideological divide.

This Friday, he’ll teach students about the relevance of media literacy, its significance for American democracy and the way journalism has gone through phases of objectivity and partisanship.

“It goes in cycles. I think that after 100 years of objective reporting there was a sizable number of people who were ready for partisan media,” said Tremayne. “We’ve lived this period before.”

The colloquium starts this Friday Feb. 17 at noon in the Carrolyn A. Barros reading room in College Hall. Free pizza and drinks will provided.