It all started with a Twitter post. Or, rather a series of posts from a Tennessee man, Josh Raby, who took an April trip to a McDonald’s location to buy a milkshake.
Within hours, his bizarrely absorbing account of what happened garnered the attention of news outlets all over the world; coverage which earned Raby thousands of new online followers. The New York Daily News reported that Raby had been “tortured by two horny employees”. The owners of the Mcdonald’s location, Eric and Mabel Larson, were suddenly caught in a media frenzy. Mrs. Larson, who was instantly skeptical of Raby’s encounter with her and her husband, told the Tennessean that she and managers would be reviewing store footage to test the legitimacy of Raby’s story. It wasn’t long before Raby returned to Twitter, admitting the story was created to entertain his followers.
‘If you are wondering what I’m getting at, this is gonna be the part of the viral story where the person tells you they made a lot of it up,’ Raby told the internet.
This is just one example of a story coming out of a newsroom that turns out to be somewhat, if not largely, embellished. Professional journalism is losing resources and is becoming more and more refashioned to meet high-traffic figures.
Some stories out there have a better time going viral than others. These stories tend to be ones that better strike a chord with readers. For instance, a story on climate change, a more depressing subject, is more likely to receive fewer clicks than one evoking anxiety or panic. As well, stories that are more factual (because facts have no feelings) may have a harder time winning attention on social media. That would explain the presidential rise of someone like Donald Trump, a man who routinely stretches the truth to his benefit.
The world of Journalism is changing drastically. Old school journalists are being replaced by freelancers; bloggers or vloggers, who can report news at little expense. This gives media organizations the decision to cut down on pricey news expenditures. Weather, traffic, and crime stories, as Jeffrey Dvorkin wrote in his PBS column “Why click-bait will be the death of journalism”, are cheaper to produce. Our government sources play a part in providing this sort of news content all the time. These stories have been shown to make their profits by means of generating unreasonable panic.
Beyond professional journalism is a whole industry of “click-bait”; enticing links that bring in cash the more they’re shared and clicked on online. These “stories” often legitimize themselves under the veil of a satirical label or finely state on their website that they are for “entertainment purposes only”.
Though the transition to digital has meant a lot to businesses in terms of making content quick, easy to access, and affordable for its readers, wages paid to journalists are only decreasing. As to the state of spirit among workers, we can imagine an ennui has taken hold for those who’ve accepted the technological milieu we’re in. How depressing.
As a result, profit margins are immensely bigger for industries that have dropped labor-intensive operations. Media organizations such as start-up BuzzFeed are doing tremendously well. In 2014, the business closed a $50 million investment with Andreessen Horowitz, an investment that valued the company at $850 million. The investment was a part of co-founder and chief executive John Peretti’s cash infusion plan to migrate from their business of posting regular cat videos and listicles to a more ambitious news and film business.
This growing media competition by not only BuzzFeed but Vox and Vice Media has added a lot of pressure on legacy media who are increasingly resorting to click-bait. Click-bait hardly provides enriching stuff to read or think over, but it sure does make bank with who it lures in. Though it certainly may cause a broadcaster to lose what makes itself reputable, click-bait does provide a loose incentive for readers who stick around once they’ve satisfied their appetite for online junk food.
Stories, whether click-bait, serious, or neither, can generate movements. In today’s world, the stories striking a chord with audiences in the US and the UK, show a larger tale unfolding; one which has uneasy citizens subverting the political status quo. An expression of their want to take back national independence in this time of great transition.
These narratives will usually pick and choose facts. We’re living in a post-factual world where the truth itself obscures by way of sturdy narrative-making. Democracy becomes muddled as the truth is changed to suit advantageous political agendas. More often fake assurances are being made to the public in an effort to increase voter turnout.
We’ve seen this scenario play out in the form of the Brexit campaign and here in the US with Donald Trump. In today’s world, politicians are becoming experts at playing on the fears of certain demographics, especially when it comes to the economic woes they’ve experienced. Social validation online has taken center stage as this narrative that argues stronger borders appeals to so many who have become lost in the changeover to globalization.
In 1922, American journalist Walter Lippmann published Public Opinion. Considered to be a “founding book in American media studies” by communication theorist and media critic Fames W. Carey, the book is the first to take on a critical analysis of mass media and its role in informing the public. At the time, Lippman argued for a “sweeping rejection of traditional theories of democracy and the role of the press.”, opening with an important epistemological point that the world around us is not directly known, but shaped. This “pseudo-environment” dictates our actions, and within this environment is a “great opportunity for distortion and error.”
Lippmann’s greatest point was that the press and modern democracy ultimately “rest on the foundation of the informed citizen who makes decisions based on rational, objective criteria and that the news media are perhaps the most crucial source of this information.”
Fast forward to today, and we continue to see dramatic things happening in terms of what we can see and orchestrate online. Not only are we living in some heightened virtual reality, but we’ve also brought forth tech that captures live videos, we have precise news algorithms, chat apps (Facebook Messenger), etc. All the while, technology has made it easy for those in charge to take financial control. The world of publishing has changed for better or worse.
The power of social media has reshaped the way the news is filtered. These companies don’t always publicize accurate news. Facebook has trended multiple fake stories this year. The Washington Post found that between Aug. 31 and Sep. 22, they had “uncovered five trending stories that were indisputably fake and three that were profoundly inaccurate”.
On Aug. 29, the vice president of global operations for Facebook, Justin Osofsky, issued an apology to CBS News for trending a fake story over Fox News Anchor Megyn Kelly. The story, which came from the right-wing website End The Fed, claimed that Kelly was fired from the network for being “a closet liberal” in favor of supporting Hillary Clinton. The social network then trended a story from a 911/hoax site claiming the collapse of the World Trade Center was an inside job, citing “controlled explosions” as the culprit.
A growing number of people (especially millennials) are turning to Facebook for news consumption. The company arguably has a social responsibility to host and provide users with news that is accurate. Facebook likes to argue that it is not a media outlet. Despite what the company denies, that doesn’t stop it from being the oversized influence that it is. The social network’s aim to dismiss itself as a media entity came months after high-profile claims over editorial political bias had surfaced. Tech news site Gizmodo reported the company had been preventing conservative news topics from reaching readers’ feeds, and inserting selected stories into its trending program.
After laying off its team of news curators in August, Facebook continues to trend fake news. And although the company routinely objects to seeing itself as a media voice, the choices made with its algorithm and what it presents to us have great effects on how we view and think about the world, serving as a vital force in showcasing political views during this election, especially in shaping how people voted.
The algorithm that powers Facebook’s news feed curates posts based on what we want to see more of. This has created a dramatic “filter bubble” effect where posts are filtered and selected to suit our established beliefs. Within these beliefs is the blurring of lines between what is fact and what isn’t. This can leave the most well-read individual with conjectural information. Every day, we continue to log in to find the latest in modern propaganda that drives many into fears of unknowns and hypotheticals.
More and more, the world that is presented to us online appears to be one that is out of control. From Donald Trump and his electoral college win to Brexit to the disastrous civil war in Syria, mass immigration, continued wealth disparity, and growing terrorist attacks in the West — many of us are uncertain as to why these events are happening, and as a result, continue to retreat to an artificial world of digital simplification. And as ubiquitous as it all seems, what is the solution to this sea of misinformation and constructed virtual reality? More information…
Highly sensitive issues such as police brutality, gun control, and immigration are constantly oversimplified. Complex subjects such as the Brexit leave and Trump have been given the platform of reduced meme sharing and shaken status updates; taking serious matters and summing them up with a dozen or so words — often this makes the issue unmistakably obvious, inadvertently putting the other side down and isolating them. Though these forms of social media have surfaced for the purpose of entertainment, they condense matters to a point of factual error that has serious consequences.
Michael D. Selvia 