As Maya Angelou stated, “people will forget what you said or did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” Politics has entered an era of “post-truth politics” where feelings often outdo facts more freely and politicians tend to get away with much more fiction. This era is influenced and reinforced by social media and technology. “Vibrant social media are often a power for good, allowing information to spread that would otherwise be bottled up.”1 However, fake news has been prevalent in the media due to the “many users that share such content without thinking twice, let alone checking to determine if it is true.”2 It is arguable that “post-truth politics” and fake news media can contribute to the survival of a civil society. In …show more content…
The “post-truth” era of politics has become more evident especially with the election of Donald Trump. Trump disregards the authenticity of his words as long as they are relevant and appealing to his voters. This is supported by Stephen Colbert’s idea of “truthiness,” which describes the idea of politicians who do not care. “Truthiness” explains how politicians will state what they feel is right or should be true rather than accurate facts. Society forgoes critical thinking, relies on feelings and tends to instinctively accept the information that they are told rather than seeking out the truth. A fact checking website called PolitiFact “has rated more of Trump’s statements ‘pants-on-fire’ lies than of any other candidate.”3 This is because politicians tend to insinuate – for example, when Trump says “a lot of people are saying…,” and question anything that goes against them rather than proving the accuracy of their facts. Furthermore, Putin’s political consultant stated that “if they were lying they took care to prove what they were doing was ‘the truth’. Now no one even tries proving ‘the truth’. You can just say anything. Create realities.”4 Consequently, “post-truth” politics corresponds with a failing civil society as people pick and choose what they feel should be true and support ideas based on their existing …show more content…
Social media has allowed people with the same opinions and shared interests to meet around a source of information and form groups based on their beliefs. A platform such as social media allows members of such groups to strengthen each other’s opinions by shutting out opposing information and allowing them to take joint action. For example, Google’s search algorithms offer users personalized results according to their internet behaviours and preferences. Facebook also uses algorithms to filter news feeds with content that is similar to what users have previously liked. Eli Pariser identified this as the “filter bubble,” which is the strengthening of “the tendency of netizens to form self-contained groups”5 which would be based on online content that they have previously been exposed to and interacted with. News organizations also play an important role in “propagating hoaxes, false claims, questionable rumours and dubious viral content, thereby polluting the digital information stream.”6 With the multitude of social media platforms and the various applications to share personal views and opinions, all the power is in the user’s hands. It is not comprehensible to remove said power and “gate keep” the information that is being shared. Thus, the survival of a society with the distribution of fake news in the media is
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”
Many people have no interest in current events in the world or even their own country, and are more concerned about matters that are more trivial, and even if they were to pay a deal of attention, common news sources are often biased and don’t release information that would hurt a certain cause. It is in this way that the citizens are kept igno...
According to James Madison, “nothing could be more irrational than to give the people power and to withhold from them information, without which power is abused,” suggesting that the people have the right to learn popular information and learn both sides of an issue (Paul and Elder 2). However, in modern society, the media often do not present both sides of an issue and are inclined to often mask information for their personal benefits. Therefore, the people often learn and understand only one aspect of an issue and inevitably lean towards the bias present in that news account. Indubitably, the coverage in the mainstream news media influences the majority through its bias and propaganda, especially its partisan audience, which only appreciates one side of the news story. Thus, even though news networks may claim that their news programs and publications are completely factual and credible, their coverage of news events is politically, commercially, and racially biased.
Correspondingly, in “Do Fact Checks Matter” by Danielle Kurtzleben she establishes that Americans ignore facts and believe in falsehoods especially coming from a politicians on their side. This source agrees with both “Why We Believe Alternative Facts” By Kirsten Weir and “Two Stories, One America: How Political Narratives Shape Our Understanding of Reality” By Stephen Hawkins and Tommy Flint. All four of the authors demonstrate how people will disregard proven facts if the facts do not compliment their beliefs. Kurtzleben focuses on how fact checking is not effective in this day and age because people simply ignore facts and the backfire effect comes into play. The backfire effect is when people hear facts opposing their beliefs and instead of the fact changing their mind it actually makes them dig in their heels and defend what they believe even more. Weir informs that even the most educated people hide behind confirmation bias or as she puts it motivated reasoning. Hawkins and Flint show that people ignore facts just to go along with their ideologies instead of keeping their personal
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.
The importance of truth, or lack thereof, is an important issue that comes into play with everyone’s life and their moral values. In their lifetime, everyone expresses opinions on matters that they feel strongly about. When they do so, they do it with what they feel is up to their moral standards; truth is not always prevalent in these standards. While some believe truth to be of no importance in these statements, others believe the contrary. When a piece of news or a person is talked about by others with statements of truth, the subject’s reputation is never tarnished unjustly. However, when spoken of spuriously, the subject can fall victim to unmerited smear. Today, there are more methods one might use to promote the spread of false
Three of the most popular social media sites are Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube (Alexa, 2011b). These sites have different uses for diverse kinds of people. For a normal person, Facebook or Twitter might be a website that is used to connect with friends and family. However, research suggests that, “...it soon became apparent that social media could be used for other political purposes, from simply providing a forum for like-minded political dissidents to voice their opinions, to being used for organising and instigating major political riots and even revolutions (Earl and Kimport, 2011; Papic and Noonan, 2011).” This is an important fact to consider whi...
There are countless innovative ways to share and communicate any type of news that has become abundant in most places in today’s world. However, this can sometimes bring a negative impact on our society and different aspects of everyday life. It becomes more easier to share news online and with a broad audience. This leads down to a spiraling epidemic known by a world as fake news. Fake news has been plaguing the news feed for centuries, and it continues to be abundant in news in the present, whether it would be in social platforms and online networks, to political speeches, to foreign countries that are publicizing countless amounts of hoaxes and fake news all over the internet.
Upon first glance, Children of the Sea, the first short story in Edwidge Danticat’s book Krik? Krak!, appears innocent in its premise. After all, who doesn’t enjoy a story about two young lovers? But upon further examination, we learn the Ms. Danticat is giving us a glimpse of the Haitian experience.
The spreading of misleading information is a concept so old that it can be dated back to the very dawn of man. For many years false narratives and stories have been spun to achieve a variety of goals, be it political or personal, however, the spreading of fake news has seen drastic changes within the past few decades. In today’s world of buzzwords and short headlines, fake news has been able to embed itself within our free marketplace of ideas, being perpetuated into echo chambers for even more people to see and spread. We as consumers have been told that fake news is not just limited to satirical news pieces anymore, but that it also exists prevalently within the mainstream news cycle as well. This narrative is spouted by members of high authoritative
In their ideal sense, any false information is primarily meant to damage the reputation of an individual, agency or institution or alternatively meant to gather undue advantage against their competitors. To achieve this feat, most institutions employ underhand methods such as smear campaign, negative news among others to raise their relevance within the website. Partisanship, minimal literacy levels among the masses in addition to the increasing numbers of the social media are to contribute to the increasing number of the spread of fake news within the society. This greatly indents the society in that, it affects the democratic space of the society. Recently surfacing aspects such as intrusion of privacy by such media sites as Facebook, among other online digital platforms violates the constitutionally entitled right to privacy.
Americans have a more active role on social media since they can participate in the content creation (Harvey 427). With this audience interaction, users reinforce echo chambers by reposting partisan content and affiliating with like-minded people (Harvey 427). Even more, social media networks use algorithms that lead their users towards articles aligning with their own ideological preferences (NPR Staff). This is described as a filter bubble, which is “when websites [use] algorithms to selectively assume the information a user would want to see, and [give] information to the user according to [the] assumption” (What Is a Filter Bubble?). These algorithms are made with the purpose of “[increasing] engagement, and [increasing] the amount of attention [spent] on” the social network (NPR Staff).
In light of the most recent Presidential Election, there has been a huge controversy about “real” and “fake” news in the media. One of the biggest fake news stories, Obama Signs Executive Order Banning The Pledge Of Allegiance In Schools Nationwide, received more than 2.1 million shares on Facebook. Fake news refers to the publishing of false information, that lacks credibility in an attempt to mislead readers and spread misinformation. In contrast, real news refers to the publishing of information that consists of facts, combined using accurate and relevant news sources in order to provide readers with trustworthy information. The aim of this research paper is to analyze two stories, in an attempt to evaluate and distinguish them as “real”
The purpose of this essay is to develop a further understanding of the impacts of social media in regards to the political debate. By looking at the topic of social media and the use rhetoric in response to politics in the 21st century, a deeper understanding of the issue can be established. Social media has become a primary source for the discussion of politics by the average citizen; whether through the sharing of articles, “memes”, advertisements or personal expository statements. As a result, large sums of information and ideas are spread rapidly to a wide variety of subjects. However, much of this information may not be accurate and could be misinterpreted. Consequently potentially misinformed citizens may not be able to make a properly
These days, thanks to the invention of social media, we have become able to communicate with others easily without talking in person by posting and sharing our lives, interesting information and comments for the posts on the social media such as Facebook or Instagram. However, the problem is that although social media has made our lives more comfortable and enjoyable, it has become a serious issue in the contemporary world since it can be used as an effective means to spread the fake news easily and make a chance to manipulate people’s thoughts and opinions. In the articles, “Macron’s War on 'Fake News',” written by Yasmeen Serhan and “Fake Online News Spreads Through Social Echo Chambers,” written by Filippo Menczer, both Serhan and Menczer