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The Political Power of Social Media
The Political Power of Social Media
What is happening in politics influenced by social media
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In today’s society, it is a rarity to see young people not on some form of technology. Rather it is a smart phone or watch, majority of today’s millennials are somewhat attached to their electronic devices. With the ease of accessibility, it comes to no shock that Statitics.com reported an estimated 7.5 million citizens gathered their primary news reports from popular social media pan handles. Fake news influences young voters and exploits their impotence to detect between reliable and unreliable sources by using social media. The results of this can be disastrous to our society. With social media being the craze that has taken our world by storm, it serves as no surprise that just as real news and journalism spreads, as does lies and falsified information. Fake news is a hoax deliberately spread to create a bias among the …show more content…
Wynne Davis from NPR says, “Sites with endings like .com.co should make you raise your eyebrows and tip you off that you need to dig around more to see if they can be trusted.”, when reading stories that either have questionable content or advertising, consider Mr. Davis’ advice. Fake news impacts young voters daily, rather it be a bias generated against a certain candidate based on falsified information that has been spread through social media or if it is just the simple fact that this misinformation ruins others perception of that person in general. Fake news is very easily spread. Once something is put on social media, it can be shared with a click of a button. You have to be careful about what you read and believe in on social media because much of it is false, Statics.com notes that 64% of the younger generation is getting their news from social media. With majority of millennials relying on social media apps to get their news from, it is very easy for bias to be
In his essay, “The Good, The Bad, and The Daily Show,” Jason Zinser explores the vices and virtues of so-called “fake” news programs. “Fake” news, as Zinser explains, are those programs that blend newsworthy events with comedy. By examining The Daily Show, Zinser reveals both positive and negative impacts that “fake” news could have on society. As a result, Zinser concludes that there are benefits as well as potential problems with “fake” news programs but insists that the true challenge is determining the net impact on society. The essay, which first appeared in The Daily Show and Philosophy: Moments of Zen and the Art of Fake News in 2007, challenges experts on both sides of the argument who either claim fake news is for entertainment only or that fake news is an acceptable source for information on current events. On one hand, Zinser uses expert testimonies to support his argument that the end result is a better informed public but on the other, he makes logical arguments enhanced by examples to illustrate the potential impacts “fake” news can have on its viewers and mainstream media.
Cass R. Sunstein talks about this in her article “How Facebook Makes Us Dumber.” She states that social media “intentionally spreads false information” (Sunstein). In her article she explains how Americans look for answers they want to hear even if the information is incorrect and how there is a rapid increase in not supporting true information, and this does not only happen on social media but in the real world too. Pariser talks in his article about how “it will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them” (Pariser). He talks in his speech about the filter bubbles social media put on for people. Sunstein also shows that people have a specific place in putting this false information and one is “within homogenous clusters”
In the current time, it seems like one cannot go a day without using at least one social media website. This might be especially true among groups of teenagers and young adults. Social media became a vital part of daily life that feeds people with several types of information constantly. Political news is a type of information that can reach the people through the means of social media. Since presidents are constantly seeking new strategies to increase their communication with the public in order to spread their political message, they utilize the different social media websites. Hence, social media became a platform to spread political message. It is not surprising that now the majority of political officials and candidates have social media accounts more than ever before, such as a Twitter account.
1 If I had to help somebody spot fake news, I would tell him/her to consider and investigate a number of things in the story. The characteristics of a fake news article include too many exclamation marks, an unnamed author, written in capital letters and misspelled, starts with appeals such as “This is NOT a hoax!”; having links to sources which are a complete contradiction and do not support the statements being made (Kiely & Robertson, 2016). In order to identify news as fake, it is important for the reader to have fact-checking and critical thinking skills.
Yet another presidential race is afoot. Ever news channel is fraught with the latest drama and social media with the most opinionated people conceivable. Mudslinging rears its ugly head, yet again, and obnoxious, one-liner bumper stickers are everywhere. It is to no surprise some find the election disturbing with all the nonsense that runs about, but there was recently a video that tops them all. A video that has been going around has depicted Hillary Clinton at her worst and concludes that she is a liar and a deceiver, but is this actually the case? A closer look might render a better insight. After observing the video, the conflict between Clinton and the media reveals both of their faults while leading to a possible solution.
In the article “Facebook’s Problem is More Complicated Than Fake News,” R. Kelly Garrett explores the idea of reading and interpreting information online. The research questions whether posts facebook have a negative effect or not. Although the main focus of his article was about politics and how facebook posts affected the latest American presidential election, it also raised questions about our relationship with social media and the news. Garrett voices his concern about the reliability of the news that is posted on facebook considering the large amount of people that put trust in it. His research regarding the software on facebook (and possibly other social media sites) describes the way in which our home feeds are filtered so that articles
The introduction of the internet to modern society has brought about a new age of information relation. Since there is no longer a need to wait until the next print day, news from all over the world is available at a person’s fingertips within hours or even minutes of the event. With this advent of such easily accessible information, new problems for the news media have also arisen. Aside from potentially losing good economic standing because newspapers are no longer being purchased in the quantities they used to be, the credibility of the information itself is also put into question. No one would argue that credibility of news sources is unimportant, but there is a discrepancy in what takes precedence; economy and speed or getting the information out correctly at the first publishing by taking the time to make sure all facts are checked. The importance of having a system of checks on all information submitted is paramount. People trust what they read and believe it to be so without always questioning. If all information were to not be checked thoroughly, there would be instances where people read an article only for information included to be wrong and they go on believing such information. This can be very dangerous as misinformed people make misinformed decisions. With an increase in errors being made by citizen bloggers and even major publications, many are worried that journalistic ethics and credibility in the news media are being sacrificed in order to maintain swiftness in the news circuit and to retain personal profits. Though getting information to the masses quickly is a major part of the media’s importance, this should not mean that the credibility of that information being presented should be sacrificed for it...
According to the poll, eighty percent of Republican voters, sixty percent of independent voters, and fifty-three percent of Democratic voters believe there is fake news in the mainstream media. Even though, the majority of American voters believe that the mainstream media is putting out fake news, a different poll by Harvard-Harris states that sixty percent of voters believe President Trump is treating the media unfairly (Easley). This can be interpreted that even though the general public has a dislike to the mainstream media, they think that trump is attacking the media too harshly. Fake News not only affects the United States, but also other countries throughout the world. For example, there was a concern about Fake News during the Italian elections in 2016 (Horowitz).
Certainly for as long as communication itself has existed there has always been misleading or even blatantly false information spread. However, as technology become more and more advanced the spread of this false information has become increasingly easier. Recently, a large focus has been placed upon what has been termed as fake news. The most simple definition for what fake news looks like are news stories that present themselves as fact but are intentionally false. Regardless of whether the people spreading theses articles are just in it for the money, or are purposefully trying to convert people to their opinions, the main issue is that people are believing these stories.
“Fake News” on the other hand is slightly different than a “clickbait”. Before the 2016 election season started, fake news were news articles that are intended to be false, completely fabricated and misleading. Now, fake news has a complete different meaning. It’s now popularized by our current president, Donald Trump. He used the term “fake news” to dismiss coverage that is unsympathetic to him and his administration.
William Pollard once said that information is a source of learning. But unless it is organized, processed, and available to the right people in a format for decision making, it is a burden, not a benefit. From this quote we can say that information contains power but once information is fabricated it can be used to manipulate and cause havoc within a small group of people or even the whole world. Fake news has been around for generations in the form of gossips and rumors. Recently it has become increasingly commonplace due to the extensive use of social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter.
Social media is a revolutionary way to connect with friends and family through a single app, much like Facebook. Also allowing the public to be more informed on current events, whether that is an issue in today’s society, all the way to a heartwarming story or a funny video. This sounds amazing and the fact that this type of news outlet is practically new. An issue arises that involves “fake news” and with that comes many opinions on what to do about it. I believe that people browsing these platforms should have a little bit of skepticism behind each story and if the topic truly intrigues someone then they should look into the topic on a reliable resource before passing on the authors misinformation.
Naturally, journalism would spill over to the Internet and as social media websites such as Twitter and Facebook grew in popularity, so did regular citizens involvement with sharing news. The argument can be made that the explosion of social media journalism was due to frustration from the lack of coverage of news that mattered to society. For example, the lack of subjective coverage of Michael Brown 's death helped with the creation of #BlackLivesMatter and spread of news related to African-American’s and other minorities across the country. After all, journalism is supposed to be a public forum. Millions of people on Twitter share their thoughts and opinions on several topics, furthering the conversation and to some degree challenging society. Things such as “Moments” on Twitter provide us with direct links and summaries to the world’s most important stories and encourage a conversation. According to journalism.org, 63% of users on Twitter and Facebook get their news from these websites. Even more eye opening is that 59% of users on Twitter keep up to date with news stories via Twitter while they are in the process of happening.[3] The rise of social media related journalism has caused some issues however. “Inevitably, as citizen involvement grows, more of our media culture is concerned with talking about news, instead of focusing on original reporting and the vetting of it.”[4] Because the general public has the ability to post as they wish and pass it off as news, it has affected the accuracy of many reports. Many stories lack reputable sources but are shared between millions as an accurate and true story. There are several websites designed to spread inaccurate information. The website www.fakenewswatch.com exists to inform people of these sites in order to avoid mishaps. Recently a Connecticut mom went viral for being involved in an online hoax
Fake News is constantly being written, permeating through television broadcasts, internet sites, and magazine articles. It seems that the amount of false news in the world is starting to overtake the amount of genuine information. This is indeed a problem, but not as much as people make it out to be. This is for a few reasons. Fake news is much like bacteria, there are both beneficial and harmful types of fake news. Beneficial fake news is usually
From the beginning days of the printing press to the always evolving internet of present day, the media has greatly evolved and changed over the years. No one can possibly overstate the influential power of the new media of television on the rest of the industry. Television continues to influence the media, which recently an era of comedic television shows that specialize in providing “fake news” has captivated. The groundbreaking The Daily Show with Jon Stewart and its spin-off The Colbert Report have successfully attracted the youth demographic and have become the new era’s leading political news source. By parodying news companies and satirizing the government, “fake news” has affected the media, the government, and its audience in such a way that Bill Moyers has claimed “you simply can’t understand American politics in the new millennium without The Daily Show,” that started it all (PBS).