Jeffrey Wolfe
It used to be that news was
broadcast over the radio or television by a news organization or written and
printed in the newspaper. If you were a company that was able to tell a story
in one of these three outlets, then you could control the information and how
it was reaching people. Today in the age of social media, stories are coming
from multitudes of different outlets and knowing the legitimacy of them is much
harder.
Social Media
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and
many other social media outlets are places where stories can be shared in
seconds and reach a wide audience. For example, according to the Pew
Research Center in December, 2018, 20% of U.S. adults get their news
regularly from social media compared to 16% from print newspapers. Just two
years prior print newspapers were a higher source than social media.
Many of these social outlets have a particular place you can
go to catch up on daily news, but it is the news shared by friends and family
while scrolling through a news feed that can be dangerous. With an article being
instant information, sometimes it is an afterthought to check the source of the
information. Was this article from a credible news organization, or from a
startup with an agenda?
Another form of information that is misleading is sponsored advertisements,
especially when they have a bias agenda with the information that is shared.
According to a research article published by the Stanford
Graduate School of Education, a report from the Stanford History Education
Group in 2016 found that, “shows a dismaying inability by students to reason
about information they see on the internet.” The same report looked at middle
school children, and “of the 203 surveyed, more than 80% believed a native ad,
identified with the words “sponsored content,” was a real news story.”
What Can Be Done?
Journalism ethics must be at the forefront of any article
that is written. Even if an article is not originally written for a digital
audience, it should be assumed that it could be. The information compiled and
story told must be objective; the bedrock of journalism.
Social media outlets can also do a better job of flagging
and calling out sponsored articles. By doing this, it can bring attention to
the user that this might be an article with an agenda or one-sided story.
Jeffrey,
ReplyDeleteThis discussion needs to be addressed more and more as digital platforms continue to thrive in our society. Social media can be a great tool, but it can also be manipulated to be misleading. We are living in an age where people NEED truthful and objective information to be able to make decisions.
Journalism is more important than ever, and must be factual. It must be professional! Nice blog.
-Billy