True or false is no longer just a set of questions on your exams!
Looking through social media sites, it can be hard to tell the difference between the truth and lies. People use social media to get news, entertain themselves and connect with family/friends. One woman put true or false to the test on her social media sites. Zilla van den Born faked a 5-week vacation in Southeast Asia. She didn't tell anyone in her family or any of her friends about her plan. Using Photoshop, she faked photos to 'prove' she went on a vacation. We all know the saying "pic or it didn't happen', but that isn't true anymore! Pictures can be faked so easily these days. Zilla created 5 weeks worth of pictures. Everyone believed that she had gone on this amazing trip. With a little help from the Internet and photo editing software, people can fake almost anything! People even pretend to be completely different people and have entire relationships with others on the Internet. Technology has made it very easy to become, and 'go', whatever/wherever you want!
Just like Zilla faked a 5-week vacation, people can fake news stories. People can write whatever they choose, and someone else will believe them. Someone can Photoshop a picture of a politician to make it whatever they want, and someone on the Internet will think the photo is real. Social media has increased the spread of information. Someone can post something on Twitter, and it is very easily retweeted. It takes no time at all to spread the information! People see a picture of a sick child on Facebook and immediately share it. Then we find out that child wasn't sick, and the picture was fake. People will say whatever they want on social media, and people believe them without even thinking about it.
So beware, you never know if something you see, or read, on the Internet is true or false!
Emily,
ReplyDeleteI actually read this online a few weeks ago, it was fascinating! I'm so glad someone wrote about it. Graber actually writes about citizen journalism and how it can be false information. False stories on the internet can cause sever problems, such as Graber's example of a missing student who was linked to a bombing, the family were forced to shut down a Facebook page looking for the student and then he was found dead a day later (Graber, pg 88). It is unfortunate that people can't tell the difference between a fake and a true story and the consequences can be dire.
Emily,
ReplyDeleteThat is a very interesting piece of information that you shared. It is true that with how advanced todays society is we can't tell what is real and what is not. It is just like the media. Things can be taken out of context at anytime and people won't know unless the truth reveals itself but by then the damage is already done. As Bennett mentions, "journalism falls into two broad categories of (a) reporting the official lines of the day and (b) then playing personal "gotcha" games, often with the same officials and newsmakers." (Bennett 157) It is hard to believe that the media has turned to more soft news and less investigation into the truth of the story.
As soon as I read this post I was immediately reminded of a "news outlet" called theonion.com With their tag line "America's Finest News Source", they have been the source of multiple social media frenzies after they release a story that then turns out to be false. A quick look at their "Politics" homepage would have even the most seasoned journalist questioning the legitimacy of some of the articles. While some of them are obviously fake, some seem plausible. Take a look: http://www.theonion.com/section/politics/
ReplyDeleteThis goes hand in hand with the Work Routines and Professional Norms section of Chapter 5 in the book as they talk about ethical codes in journalism.