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After just discussing ethics and trust within the journalism profession, we now move onto some reasons of why perhaps the profession is under so much scrutiny. Within the journalism field, there have been numerous problems with depicting the truth.
Whether it be through using false photos that have been enhanced for shock value, fake viral videos that mislead the viewers, the ethical complexity of featuring graphic photos, and other technological-based issues, there are numerous reasons why viewers are distrusting.
Video has become the best way for companies to communicate to customers, reporters to report information, and entertainment for anyone and everyone, even on the go. However, what they don’t tell you is that video is extremely subjective.
The rise of video reporting can be attributed to a multitude of things. One may be that studies show people who have viewed visual content remember it up to three days after they’ve been exposed to it.
With the rise of new technology, new problems come along with it. This is true for the common phenomenon of videos going viral. With the introduction of the internet, journalist have a newfound responsibility that comes along with the great power of viral communication that comes along with video reporting.
An example of this that was pointed out within the article “Stop Trusting Viral Videos” published in the Atlantic. The article described the incident of a Catholic students clashing with American Indians that went viral during a protest event.
The first video depicted one student apparently staring down an elder whilst wearing a MAGA hat. The video took off as viewers believed that this was an act of aggression against the elder. A second video then went viral that gave a different backstory to the video, which then changed the light that the first video was viewed in.
This example has helped reach the conclusion that videos don’t necessarily tell the entire truth. While they show moving pictures and have an emotional appeal to viewers, it lacks to show what happened before people started filming.
This context is extremely important. Through not being able to include it, videos are subject to bias that cannot be avoided.
Another interesting fact to consider is that if any minute detail were changed within the video, it would have changed the meaning of the video. This proves how fragile videos are at depicting the truth of a situation.
The viral sensation has increased the distrust of the media after viewers felt misled from the first video. However, this distrust doesn’t stop YouTube from reaching 4 billion hours of video’s watched per month.
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