Deception in the Media

By: Cassidy Voase
cv770715@ohio.edu

In today's society, deception in the media and in news reporting is growing ever more prevalent. The term "fake news" is heard more and more, and it is oftentimes difficult to distinguish from a consumer standpoint between what's real and what's biased. This simultaneous confusion and deception is due to a variety of factors, including increasingly tense political climate, expanding technology, ambiguous celebrity endorsements and biased reporting.


Celebrity Endorsements 

With the world of influencers and endorsements constantly expanding, so too does the level of deception among viewers' rise. Far too many celebrities are guilty of posting sponsored Instagram photos and failing to acknowledge that the post contains a paid advertisement; this further misleads and deceives viewers by not being transparent about the benefits - monetary or otherwise - the celebrity is receiving for posting about a specific product or brand. Likewise, even those posts that are not paid but which contain a free gift sent by a company should be disclosed as such. This article highlights an instance in which Kim Kardashian came under attack for undisclosed paid advertisements on her Instagram account in which the celebrity failed to mark the posts as such. Furthermore, the below image shows a post from Kardashian's Instagram where she is clearly promoting the product of SugarBear Hair and yet which she never directly says is a paid sponsorship or advertisement of any sort.

While well-known celebrities with large following levels are guilty of this, so too are those influencers with as little as hundreds or a thousand followers, referred to as "micro-influencers." More so, these influencers with a smaller following can oftentimes even be more prone to be shady in their posts due to the simple fact that they don't have as many eyes critiquing their activity.


Astroturfing 

Another form of news deception that stems from expanding technological knowledge is the idea of astroturfing, or the conscious misleading or misrepresentation of facts to create support for one's own or group views. Astroturfing uses carefully curated personas to generate fake support for an issue that may be otherwise opposed by the general population, making it look as though there are more people standing behind the issue than there actually is. More over and even scarier, these astroturf groups are automated to link with seemingly real and active social media accounts, emails and IP addresses, further deceiving viewers as to the credibility of the sources. These fake accounts are even set up to repost content and to be "aged" to make it seem as if they've been in use for a period of time. The idea of astroturfing lends insight into the ways in which expansion of technological capabilities can feed into media and news deception. This article explores the ways in which the drug industry intentionally misleads consumers through astroturfing in order to further promote recreational drug use.

Biases 

Perhaps the most common form of media deception is the act of creating biases in reporting through misrepresentation of facts. This can be seen on a daily basis in the news, where various media outlets choose to depict the same story in different lights in order to support that outlet's personal beliefs; this goes against the journalistic value of being transparent and simply reporting the truth over all else. This is even more present as of recent due to controversy in politics and strong affiliations in competing networks such as CNN and FOX News, where terms like "fake news" are thrown around on the regular. In addition, media biases can stem from an organization reporting on behalf of itself, in which internal bias can occur due to the group wanting to present itself in a positive light.