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Misinformation and the Consumer: Power, Perception, Reality, and Responsibility
As we progress through time so too does everything that humans have brought into this world progress with us, whether it be for the good or the bad. There is a veritable myriad of examples of this concept such as phones, computers, cars, business, communication, energy, and the list goes on and on. With a constant and consistent progression, new, unforeseen, and/or not yet seen problems inherently come along with it as a byproduct. Of course, the goal is to minimize any negative outcome as much as possible, but there are times when these outcomes cannot be wholly removed for a variety of reasons; sometimes the reason can be unavoidable such as we know how to fix the problem but do not possess advanced enough technology to do so whereas other times, we find ourselves to actually be the problem. That is to say that through these various technological progressions, how we as a people, a national, and an international society use these new pieces of technology will dictate how the technology is viewed in regards to being a positive or a negative thing. A very clear example of this is nuclear power / energy; no one wants to see a nuclear bomb go off again, because of the obvious negative ramifications of such a device, but people (should) be less apprehensive about the idea of using nuclear energy as a power source. However, in this example, and pulling from real world views, we can see that the extreme negative sides of nuclear energy have brought a stigma towards the field leading people to also be more likely to be against nuclear energy as well; the same can be said about the recent progression of both mainstream and social media.
As mainstream media has been around longer, we will address this first as the progression is much easier to see given the much larger span of time. Over the last several decades, mainstream media has evolved and transformed from your corner newsstand boy yelling “Extra! Extra! Read all about it” to the advent of the radio, the transition thence to television and then television in color, and was then revolutionized to the seemingly incessant bombardment of news, current events, and celebrity drama that we see today with the coming of the internet. The sheer quantity of people that can be reached in a matter of literal seconds in clear picture and sound is unparalleled to anything before this time. However, as Uncle Ben said, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and that statement holds true more so now than ever before. With this power of being able to truly reach the masses, the responsibility of elaborate and thorough reporting and investigation is an absolute necessity for, without the proper due diligence, misinformation will run rampant be it due to negligence or intent.
(https://www.everydaynodaysoff.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/marines-girl-scout-cookies-door-kicker.jpg)
One of the biggest issues is how are we expected to fight against misinformation / willful deception/ and omission when the damage is done as soon as the material is disseminated and consumed by the populace and a simple retraction or correction is all a newspaper needs to do to “right the wrong”? In the world we live in where we have sayings like “my truth”, how do we keep anyone honest when it could simply be their truth? How is the average consumer supposed to be able to recognize and understand the concept of a distinction without a difference? All of these issues are issues that exist today and issues that are exacerbated by misinformation and deceit by mainstream media.
(https://i.pinimg.com/originals/74/a1/27/74a12754bba6721a63073f60bfc931b5.jpg)
Further to the same point, given that mainstream media nowadays nearly never solely reports the facts and always puts an opinion based, a.k.a. biased, spin on whichever story is being told, it tends to polarize readers based on their preferred news outlet. Typically, this is seen in reference to differing political ideologies and most typically within the main most controversial and divisive issues. Being aware of this is important because as a news outlet attempts to understand how their audience is, it is important for the media consumer to understand who / what their sources are and where they come from. An unfortunate downside to this is that people tend towards consensus and agreement and therefore stray from hearing opposing viewpoints and prefer to simply hear other people reassure their pre-existing views regardless of how well-informed they are. A symptom of this is that people will hold beliefs and have never themselves questioned them and take it for truth at face value. What this means is these types of people will easily come defensive and hostile when their beliefs are questioned since they oftentimes have no logical, research based, or other sort of backing for why they believe or think the way they do. In pursuing knowledge and information for the sake of being well-informed this allows the consumer at the lowest individual level to fight misinformation as they have the knowledge and context to more easily recognize when things aren’t lining up.
(https://external-preview.redd.it/WtLtzCQBKtzm9mShY4VKJwCs9RWXUu9xk3Fj41i4fHo.png?width=1200&height=628.272251309&auto=webp&s=1944022d3888ae8207b73d12362eab4a2def8833)
Social media is an entirely different, although related, can of worms when poster responsibility, power, and perception are involved. Unlike the inherent legal responsibility of the mainstream media, regardless of how easy it is to skirt those requirements, the average joe social media user and abuser faces no such ramifications. This is unfortunate because purposefully deceiving virtual information can be vastly circulated in a matter of hours that can have real-world consequences for those effected by the content, and very few of what is posted is removed due to actual legality issues. This is where the duty of the reader, or consumer of media, is to “trust but verify” what they say, especially if he or she has the intent to further spread what they are consuming. In particular we see how easy this is with Facebook’s share button, showing us what friends like, showing what friends comment on, and so on.
With this lack of accountability of information spread, various platform designers/owners have taken it on themselves to be this light in the darkness with regard to our constantly referenced dichotomies such as “good and bad”, “right and wrong”, “dangerous and innocuous”. As was evidenced in the Tedx talk by one Andreas Ekström, Google code writers used their position to effectively halt a racist smear campaign against at the time First Lady Obama, in which search results of her name would also produce pictures of her drawn as a monkey. He continues further by illustrating an identical example of a recent terrorist who blew up buildings and killed dozens of people, after which time a campaign against him was conducted wherein search results for his name would turn up pictures of dog feces. What is the difference here? The difference is that most everyone would agree that one was inherently “bad”, whereas the other was more of a good thing. And that’s where our beloved dichotomies kick in. Nevertheless, the main issue here is not these two cases evidenced, it’s the cases where there is a much less universal agreement on what is good and bad and therefore the code writers at Google, Facebook, Instagram who control the content that everyone sees essentially turn into the Gods of information dissemination. This is the point where their power effects perception, thereby perception changes reality, and the responsibility to these effected changes rest solely with the Corporations.
0 notes
Text
Misinformation and the Consumer: Power, Perception, Reality, and Responsibility
As we progress through time so too does everything that humans have brought into this world progress with us, whether it be for the good or the bad. There is a veritable myriad of examples of this concept such as phones, computers, cars, business, communication, energy, and the list goes on and on. With a constant and consistent progression, new, unforeseen, and/or not yet seen problems inherently come along with it as a byproduct. Of course, the goal is to minimize any negative outcome as much as possible, but there are times when these outcomes cannot be wholly removed for a variety of reasons; sometimes the reason can be unavoidable such as we know how to fix the problem but do not possess advanced enough technology to do so whereas other times, we find ourselves to actually be the problem. That is to say that through these various technological progressions, how we as a people, a national, and an international society use these new pieces of technology will dictate how the technology is viewed in regards to being a positive or a negative thing. A very clear example of this is nuclear power / energy; no one wants to see a nuclear bomb go off again, because of the obvious negative ramifications of such a device, but people (should) be less apprehensive about the idea of using nuclear energy as a power source. However, in this example, and pulling from real world views, we can see that the extreme negative sides of nuclear energy have brought a stigma towards the field leading people to also be more likely to be against nuclear energy as well; the same can be said about the recent progression of both mainstream and social media.
As mainstream media has been around longer, we will address this first as the progression is much easier to see given the much larger span of time. Over the last several decades, mainstream media has evolved and transformed from your corner newsstand boy yelling “Extra! Extra! Read all about it” to the advent of the radio, the transition thence to television and then television in color, and was then revolutionized to the seemingly incessant bombardment of news, current events, and celebrity drama that we see today with the coming of the internet. The sheer quantity of people that can be reached in a matter of literal seconds in clear picture and sound is unparalleled to anything before this time. However, as Uncle Ben said, “with great power comes great responsibility”, and that statement holds true more so now than ever before. With this power of being able to truly reach the masses, the responsibility of elaborate and thorough reporting and investigation is an absolute necessity for, without the proper due diligence, misinformation will run rampant be it due to negligence or intent.
One of the biggest issues is how are we expected to fight against misinformation / willful deception/ and omission when the damage is done as soon as the material is disseminated and consumed by the populace and a simple retraction or correction is all a newspaper needs to do to “right the wrong”? In the world we live in where we have sayings like “my truth”, how do we keep anyone honest when it could simply be their truth? How is the average consumer supposed to be able to recognize and understand the concept of a distinction without a difference? All of these issues are issues that exist today and issues that are exacerbated by misinformation and deceit by mainstream media.
Further to the same point, given that mainstream media nowadays nearly never solely reports the facts and always puts an opinion based, a.k.a. biased, spin on whichever story is being told, it tends to polarize readers based on their preferred news outlet. Typically, this is seen in reference to differing political ideologies and most typically within the main most controversial and divisive issues. Being aware of this is important because as a news outlet attempts to understand how their audience is, it is important for the media consumer to understand who / what their sources are and where they come from. An unfortunate downside to this is that people tend towards consensus and agreement and therefore stray from hearing opposing viewpoints and prefer to simply hear other people reassure their pre-existing views regardless of how well-informed they are. A symptom of this is that people will hold beliefs and have never themselves questioned them and take it for truth at face value. What this means is these types of people will easily come defensive and hostile when their beliefs are questioned since they oftentimes have no logical, research based, or other sort of backing for why they believe or think the way they do. In pursuing knowledge and information for the sake of being well-informed this allows the consumer at the lowest individual level to fight misinformation as they have the knowledge and context to more easily recognize when things aren’t lining up.
Social media is an entirely different, although related, can of worms when poster responsibility, power, and perception are involved. Unlike the inherent legal responsibility of the mainstream media, regardless of how easy it is to skirt those requirements, the average joe social media user and abuser faces no such ramifications. This is unfortunate because purposefully deceiving virtual information can be vastly circulated in a matter of hours that can have real-world consequences for those effected by the content, and very few of what is posted is removed due to actual legality issues. This is where the duty of the reader, or consumer of media, is to “trust but verify” what they say, especially if he or she has the intent to further spread what they are consuming. In particular we see how easy this is with Facebook’s share button, showing us what friends like, showing what friends comment on, and so on.
With this lack of accountability of information spread, various platform designers/owners have taken it on themselves to be this light in the darkness with regard to our constantly referenced dichotomies such as “good and bad”, “right and wrong”, “dangerous and innocuous”. As was evidenced in the Tedx talk by one Andreas Ekström, Google code writers used their position to effectively halt a racist smear campaign against at the time First Lady Obama, in which search results of her name would also produce pictures of her drawn as a monkey. He continues further by illustrating an identical example of a recent terrorist who blew up buildings and killed dozens of people, after which time a campaign against him was conducted wherein search results for his name would turn up pictures of dog feces. What is the difference here? The difference is that most everyone would agree that one was inherently “bad”, whereas the other was more of a good thing. And that’s where our beloved dichotomies kick in. Nevertheless, the main issue here is not these two cases evidenced, it’s the cases where there is a much less universal agreement on what is good and bad and therefore the code writers at Google, Facebook, Instagram who control the content that everyone sees essentially turn into the Gods of information dissemination. This is the point where their power effects perception, thereby perception changes reality, and the responsibility to these effected changes rest solely with the Corporations.
0 notes