And while Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg famously called the idea that fake news could have had an impact on the election “crazy,” he has since recanted.
At the time this surprised me.. Granted, I have no idea why I had an admiration for Mark Zuckerberg.. Seven years after that election, we've seen just how much of an impact fake news can have on anything in the world. It was definitely an ignorant and deaf statement.
There’s still a lot left to sort out. What is the distinction between a guerrilla marketer and an unethical spammer? Where does clicktivism end and algorithmic gaming begin? These are hard questions for the industry, and they require collaborative solutions. But it’s been three years, and we have to tackle this.
Widespread disinformation seems to only be growing more and more. Since this issue is so new in the grand scheme of things, there are so many gray areas regarding this issue which is interesting to think about. I imagine that in the next few years, As a journalist student, looking back on this in ten years is going to be something I look forward to. -- what have we defined by then, were we able to nip this issue in the bud, etc.
Lateral reading is a strategy that enables people to emulate how professional fact checkers establish the credibility of online information. It involves opening up new browser tabs to search for information about the organisation or individual behind a site before diving into its contents. Only after consulting the open web do skilled searchers gauge whether expending attention is worth it. Before critical thinking can begin, the first step is to ignore the lure of the site and check out what others say about its alleged factual reports.
I've always heard about lateral reading but never reallly used it. I think it wasn't until a couple years ago did I really start to implement lateral reading into my own learning. I would ever go further and say that this may because of the growth of the digital world. What I mean by this is that there has definitely been an influx in "fake news" the last decade or so, and so more and more people who at least try to be media literate may go out of their way to read and decipher the truth more carefully.
I am actually a firm advocate for lateral reading because I know it can work. It has helped me evaluate credibility of articles online and it can probably help others as well.
Younger audiences’ definitions of what news is are also wider. Recognising the variety of preferences and tastes that exist within an incredibly diverse cohort presents a new set of challenges for media organisations. But one route to increased relevance for news brands may lie in broadening their appeal – connecting with the topics young people care about, developing multimedia and platform-specific content, and aligning content and tone with format – rather than entirely replacing what they already do or expecting young people to eventually come around to what has always been done.
As a twenty-two year-old, I can't help but agree with this. Let's say, like 25 years ago, most people's source of information came from cable television, newspaper, or word of mouth. Nowadays, we have numerous news outlets that are not restricted to just cable television, and hardly anyone around me even reads the newspaper anymore. Younger audiences have the privilege of having numerous ways to get their information, and because of this, media organizations have to become more creative in order to gain favor with these younger audiences. Podcasts have become popular, and so have short 'informational' clips that you may find on TikTok, Instagram, etc. Although this creates another problem regarding the legitimacy of this content, it is what attracts younger audiences.