Glossary
Glossary of media, risk and AI visibility terms
Plain definitions of the terms communications, public affairs and risk teams use when they track media, manipulation and how AI assistants describe their organizations. Where PeakMetrics has its own measurements, entries use them with the date and scope stated.
A
Ad adjacency
Ad adjacency is the placement of an advertisement next to particular content, such as a video, post or article, and the risk that the neighboring content harms how the advertiser is perceived.
Read the definitionAI hallucination
An AI hallucination is an output from a generative AI model that is fluent and confident but false, unsupported or invented, such as a fabricated fact, quote or source.
Read the definitionAI Overviews
AI Overviews is Google's feature that shows an AI-generated summary at the top of some search results, with links to the web pages it drew on.
Read the definitionAI search
AI search is the use of large language models to answer questions in conversation or in a synthesized summary, often with citations, in place of or alongside a list of ranked links.
Read the definitionAI visibility
AI visibility is how often a brand appears in the answers AI assistants give to relevant questions, measured as the share of sampled answers that mention it.
Read the definitionAstroturfing
Astroturfing is the practice of disguising an organized campaign, funded or run by an interested party, as spontaneous grassroots support or opposition.
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B
Bot detection
Bot detection is the process of identifying automated accounts and traffic, and separating them from human activity, using behavioral, network and content signals.
Read the definitionBoycott
A boycott is an organized refusal to buy from, work with or engage with a company, brand, person or country, typically to protest its actions or to press for change.
Read the definitionBrand impersonation
Brand impersonation is the use of an organization's name, logo, domain or people to pose as that organization, usually to defraud customers, steal credentials or mislead the public.
Read the definitionBrand monitoring
Brand monitoring is the ongoing tracking of where and how a brand, its products and its people are mentioned across news, social media, forums, review sites and other public sources.
Read the definitionBrand reputation
Brand reputation is the collective view that customers, employees, investors, journalists and the public hold of a brand, formed from what it does, what it says and what others say about it.
Read the definitionBrand safety
Brand safety is the set of practices that keep a brand's advertising and name from appearing next to content or in contexts that could harm its reputation.
Read the definitionBrigading
Brigading is a coordinated effort by a group of people to flood a target, such as a post, page, review section or account, with votes, comments, reports or reviews in order to distort how it is seen or to silence it.
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C
Cancel culture
Cancel culture is a label for the withdrawal of public support or platform from a person or organization after conduct or statements that others find unacceptable, often driven by fast online mobilization.
Read the definitionConspiracy theory
A conspiracy theory is an explanation of events that attributes them to a secret plot by a powerful group, usually in a way that resists correction because contrary evidence is read as part of the cover-up.
Read the definitionCoordinated inauthentic behavior
Coordinated inauthentic behavior (CIB) is a platform-policy term for networks of accounts or pages that work together to mislead people about who is behind them or what they are doing.
Read the definitionCorporate intelligence
Corporate intelligence is the collection and analysis of information about the environment an organization operates in, including competitors, markets, regulators, stakeholders and emerging risks, to support decisions.
Read the definitionCorporate social responsibility
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) is a company's commitment to manage the social and environmental effects of its operations and to contribute to the communities and stakeholders it affects, beyond what the law requires.
Read the definitionCrisis communications
Crisis communications is the planning and execution of how an organization informs and responds to stakeholders, the media and the public when an event threatens its operations, safety or reputation.
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D
Deepfake
A deepfake is audio, video or an image that has been generated or altered with machine learning so that it convincingly shows a real person saying or doing something they did not.
Read the definitionDisinformation
Disinformation is false or misleading information that is created or spread deliberately in order to deceive, manipulate or cause harm.
Read the definitionDoxxing
Doxxing is the publication of a person's private or identifying information, such as a home address, phone number, employer or family details, without their consent, usually to expose or intimidate them.
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E
E-E-A-T
E-E-A-T stands for experience, expertise, authoritativeness and trustworthiness, the qualities Google's search quality guidelines ask human evaluators to look for when judging whether content and its publisher deserve trust.
Read the definitionEarned media
Earned media is exposure an organization receives without paying for it, such as news coverage, third-party mentions, reviews and social sharing by people who chose to write or post about it.
Read the definitionESG
ESG stands for environmental, social and governance, a set of factors that investors, regulators and other stakeholders use to assess how an organization manages risks and responsibilities beyond its financial results.
Read the definitionExecutive protection
Executive protection is the set of security measures, both physical and digital, that organizations use to reduce risks to the safety, privacy and reputation of their senior leaders.
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F
Fact-checking
Fact-checking is the process of verifying a claim against reliable evidence and publishing a finding about whether it is accurate, misleading or false.
Read the definitionFake accounts
Fake accounts are social media profiles that misrepresent who is behind them, including automated bots, sock puppets, impersonation profiles and accounts created in bulk for spam or manipulation.
Read the definitionFake news
Fake news is fabricated content presented as legitimate news, though the phrase is also used loosely for any reporting a speaker rejects.
Read the definitionFake reviews
Fake reviews are ratings or testimonials that do not reflect a genuine customer's real experience, including reviews that are purchased, written by the seller or its agents, or posted in bulk to damage a competitor.
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G
Generative engine optimization (GEO)
Generative engine optimization (GEO) is the practice of improving how often and how accurately a brand or its content appears in answers produced by AI systems such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Claude and Grok.
Read the definitionGreenwashing
Greenwashing is the practice of making an organization or product appear more environmentally responsible than it is, through misleading claims, selective disclosure or vague marketing language.
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I
Influencer marketing
Influencer marketing is the practice of working with people who have an audience on social platforms, such as creators and commentators, to promote or discuss a brand, product or cause.
Read the definitionInformation operations
Information operations are organized efforts to shape what a target audience believes or does by controlling, distorting or amplifying information, and they can be carried out by states, companies or other groups.
Read the definitionIssues management
Issues management is the ongoing process of identifying developments that could affect an organization's reputation or operations, and deciding early how to respond before they become crises.
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M
Media monitoring
Media monitoring is the systematic tracking of news, broadcast, print and online coverage to see what is being reported about an organization, its industry or a chosen topic.
Read the definitionMisinformation
Misinformation is false or misleading information that is shared without intent to deceive, so the person passing it on believes it, or at least has not checked it.
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O
OSINT (open-source intelligence)
OSINT, or open-source intelligence, is the collection and analysis of information from publicly available sources, such as news, social media, public records and websites, to answer a specific question or support a decision.
Read the definitionOwned media
Owned media is the set of channels an organization controls directly, such as its website, blog, newsroom, email lists, apps and official social accounts.
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P
Press embargo
A press embargo is an agreement that journalists will not publish information they have been given in advance until a specified date and time.
Read the definitionPress release
A press release is a short, official announcement issued by an organization to journalists and other audiences to share news, such as a product launch, a leadership change, financial results or a response to an event.
Read the definitionPress release syndication
Press release syndication is the distribution of a company announcement through a wire service or distribution network so that many news sites, aggregators and databases republish it.
Read the definitionPropaganda
Propaganda is communication designed to shape what a target audience believes or does in service of the sponsor's interests, typically by selecting, framing and repeating information rather than by open argument.
Read the definitionPublic affairs
Public affairs is the function through which an organization engages governments, regulators, policymakers and civil society groups on matters that affect its operations and reputation.
Read the definitionPublic relations
Public relations is the practice of managing how an organization communicates with the public, the press and other stakeholders in order to build understanding and trust.
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R
Reputation management
Reputation management is the practice of monitoring, influencing and responding to how an organization or person is perceived by the public, customers, regulators and the media.
Read the definitionRumor
A rumor is an unverified claim that circulates from person to person or account to account, often about a matter of public concern, without confirmation from a reliable source.
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S
Sentiment analysis
Sentiment analysis is the use of language-processing methods to classify text as positive, negative or neutral, so that opinion in large volumes of content can be summarized.
Read the definitionShadow banning
Shadow banning is a claim or practice in which a platform limits the reach of an account or post without notifying the user, so the content stays up but is seen by few people.
Read the definitionShare of voice
Share of voice is the proportion of total mentions, coverage or advertising presence in a defined market that belongs to one brand compared with its competitors.
Read the definitionSocial listening
Social listening is the analysis of public social media conversation to understand what people are saying about a brand, topic or market and why.
Read the definitionSock puppet
A sock puppet is a fake online identity run by a real person, often one of several run by the same operator, that is used to deceive others about who is speaking or how many people agree.
Read the definitionSource credibility
Source credibility is an assessment of how much trust a publisher, account or document deserves as a basis for a claim, judged from its track record, transparency, expertise and independence.
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T
Threat intelligence
Threat intelligence is analyzed information about actors, methods and events that could harm an organization, produced so that decision-makers can anticipate and respond to them.
Read the definitionTrending topics
Trending topics are subjects, hashtags or phrases that a platform identifies as rising unusually quickly in discussion at a given time and place.
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See how these signals show up in your own coverage.
The PeakMetrics platform tracks news, social and broadcast sources, and AI Perceptions tracks what AI assistants say about your organization.